TAT readers,

I won’t hold back my fury in this short essay about Musk’s massive spending and Russian influence operations, to save Texas Governor Greg Abbott and AG Ken Paxton. Nothing could be more un-Texan or un-American. These treason weasels and oligarchs have no place in any political office or position in our state or our nation. This essay may be about more about Texas, but I assure you, the national GOP is doing the same, from sea to shining sea. My criticism isn’t just for the politicians, oligarchs and Russian influence operations, it’s also about the treasonous MAGA voters who blindly support all of this. I don’t give a damn who is offended by this. They are supposedly adults and have had over a decade to “do their research,” and have run from it, as if it were a hungry lion chasing them at dinnertime. Like I said, I will not mince words in this short essay.

I have written in the past on all of these topics and in-depth. I will include links to those essays where they apply. No need to read them though. Today’s blistering account, requires little background.

“Let’s roll”

A little background

Okay everyone, let’s get right into it. Here in Texas, the GOP has been exclusively in control of Texas politics for over thirty years, during which time they have corruptly stripped Texans of any semblance of a constitutional state, and protected no one but their favorite oligarchs. For example, high-profile names like Michael Dell, Elon Musk and of course, oil supermajors like Chevron and ExxonMobil, who almost exclusively support the TX GOP are at the top of the list. Then there are lesser, extreme right-wing Christian Nationalist billionaires like Tim Dunn and Faris Wilkes, who for all intents and purposes, control Texas Republican politics, now synonymous with MAGA. Not to be outdone and all across Texas, the oil industry almost exclusively supports the treasonous, unconstitutional and cruel TX GOP. They call it supporting “conservatism,” but apparently have no idea that their version of being conservative is actually, far-right violent extremism.

In that thirty years, they have employed all manner of tactics and strategies to convince former Texan conservatives that their current right-wing extremism, is somehow, “conservative.” GOP and conspiring Russian influence operators have made fools of those considering themselves good conservatives, and have instead conned them into being fake conservatives, and Christian Nationalists. These people are now fully brainwashed, incapable of seeing the false reality they identify with. That though is their problem, not ours. Enter here, Russian influence operations, in support of Trump, the GOP and soulless oligarchs like Elon Musk.

And now, here’s why I am so furious at the treasonous TX GOP. In September alone, the TX GOP dropped $200 million on trying to shore up Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton’s extraordinary unpopularity. Most of this came from the $190 million donation from Elon Musk, a known collaborator with both Putin and Xi. To make matters worse and just like the national GOP, Russian influence operations are supporting what many Texans call, “The Texas Taliban,” a.k.a. the TX GOP. Russian influence and the GOP are no strangers to each other and have covertly worked together at least since the 2016 election. After all, Trump’s campaign manager Paul Manafort was closely associated with high-level Russian oligarchs with direct access to Putin, and had been for years, including throughout the 2016 presidential campaign. Manafort was not alone.

"The F.B.I. and special counsel Robert Mueller are investigating meetings between N.R.A. officials and powerful Russian operatives, trying to determine if those contacts had anything to do with the gun group spending $30 million to help elect Donald Trump—triple what it invested on behalf of Mitt Romney in 2012. The use of foreign money in American political campaigns is illegal. One encounter of particular interest to investigators is between Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian banker at an N.R.A. dinner."

- “Coincidence Number 395”: The N.R.A. Spent $30 Million to Elect Trump.   Was It Russian Money?
- Vanity Fair
- By Chris Smith
- June 21, 2018

Russia has been a constant collaborator with the Republican Party since well before the 2016 national elections, where they peaked. The Trump administration has unquestionably collaborated with Republican candidates and issues, as was evidenced in detail, in Volume 5 of the Russian Interference Report, commonly known as the “Mueller Report.” Volume 5 was the CI Report. In other words, the spies that catch foreign spies. Every one of its 966 pages is damning for the GOP, despite the immense amount of redactions.

Now individual Texan voices are being drowned out by massive donations from immoral billionaires like Musk, who profits from his relationships with both Putin and Xi. Just a few days ago Musk dramatically aided Russian troops operating against our ally Ukraine, by slowing down satellite services from Starlink, just prior to a Russian attack that killed civilians, including children. To pile on the pain to Ukraine’s courageous defenders, Trump then halted sanctions on Russian oil shortly after spending our tax dollars to buy Russian diesel. To rub salt in the wound, Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, praised Putin publicly calling him a “humanitarian.”

Politics are one thing, but having right-wing extremist oligarchs buying our elections for MAGA Republicans, who are also being supported by a known adversary like Russia… is treasonous. One person I’m not likely to ever forgive is Chief Justice John Roberts for his Citizens United decision that allowed human refuse like Musk to buy elections, and granting Trump immunity for Sedition and the January 6th insurrection. Like most veterans, I stand firm in my oath to the military to, “protect and defend the constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic.” As we also say, “there is no expiration date on that oath when we retire.” Politicians also take the same oath and not one single Republican sitting in congress or here in Texas has honored that sacred oath! And yet, they run around waving flags, lying about the US being “born a Christian nation” all while supporting treason, corruption and cruelty with their votes.

I put every Texan still supporting these treason weasels in the same category. GOP voters are adults and are either too damn ignorant or willfully ignorant of truth, therefore rendering them treasonous as well. Yes, I fully understand that this is a harsh assessment but honest Americans, regardless of their political affiliations do understand this. Every Republican still actively supporting the Trump-era GOP, has had more than a decade to remove their heads from their hindquarters. They refused! My empathy for them is now non-existent, unless they do the right thing and help true patriots in fighting back against the current regime and their precious GOP. The so-called “resistance” is not a democratic effort. Simply put, it’s honest Americans and true patriots standing up against treasonous fake patriots.

Musk and Zuckerberg both are using their social media platforms to support the the administration and MAGA, via a long list of technical tactics like bots, moderation and plain old censorship. META, in the past three years alone has paid massive court ordered fines, fees and settlement costs in four huge cases, for abusing their subscribers.

• Meta agrees to pay $18 billion to settle US lawsuits over children's social media addiction | Reuters

• Facebook parent Meta agrees to pay $725 million to settle privacy lawsuit

• Meta ordered to pay $25B in New Mexico Cambridge Analytica case

• Meta fined US $1.3 billion for data transfer violations - Metaverse Law

I promised everyone a shorter essay today and so will wrap this one up with a short summary. Here in Texas and all across America, the GOP with Putin’s assistance has been “rigging” our elections for years. I’ve written on this extensively in the past and will include a link or two below for anyone interested. Right now, every odd is stacked against true patriots resisting our fascist and autocratic plutocracy called the GOP. The only way to win this midterm is to have an overwhelming presence at the polls. Earlier this year, Hungary was up against Viktor Orban’, a Putin protege who also held all the cards. Hungary overthrew him and his right-wing extremist, pro-Putin party at the polls. They did it with a massive voting turnout. That’s what democracy looks like, even when all the cards are stacked against us.

There is a great line in the cowboy classic movie, Tombstone and spoken by Kurt Russell who played Wyatt Earp. In one of the scenes where he begins taking revenge on the criminal cowboy gang responsible for the murder of one of his brothers and wounding of the other, he lets one of them go instead of killing him. He did this because he wanted the thug to go back to the rest of the gang to warn them. Earp’s spoken warning was the following; “You tell 'em I'm coming! And Hell's coming with me, you hear? Hell's coming with me!" That’s how most Americans feel about today’s GOP and their enablers for the midterms. We’ve had it with them and we are coming for them, every last one of them. You hear that Greg Abbott, Ken Paxton and the TX Taliban? We’re coming for you.

We can do this America,

Publius Redux

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TAT readers,

Welcome to your weekend. Today I’m trying something a bit different since the midterms are on everyone’s mind. A little over four years ago I began this publication to write about national security threats and sadly, the most serious threat has become our own government. I hope to be able to slowly get back to talking about the long list of other national security threats, post midterms, but Trump will remain in office, DOJ will still be run by traitors and criminals and who knows what sort of un-American mayhem the Chief Justice John Roberts SCOTUS will continue to impose on us. Still, the world is a mess and that mess often involves serious individual and combined threats to the US, and the allies we had before this administration destroyed those relationships.

My typical daily routine begins with a couple of cups of coffee and reading the news and other reports for two or three hours. This is how I determine what I wish to share with all of you in these essays. Today’s essay will be me listing some of the articles and/ or reports that I found interesting for a reason or two regarding our midterms. After each, I will post a linked news article and follow it with a paragraph or so regarding my thoughts on what each article means to the midterms. Several of my recent essays have been rather long about the midterms and with the elections just a few days away, most of us have diminished attention spans for anything but. Today’s experiment is meant to respect our more limited time and attention.

As a prelude to what follows, I’ll just say that chaos, dysfunction, panic and distractions by the White House and Republican Party will frame most of what follows. Were this election not so critical to our future, some of what follows would be laughable at best, insane at worst. But here we are.

Here we go,

We might as well begin with something both desperate and insane. Of course, it comes from the White House and DOJ. As the Guardian reports, there are two Dan Sullivans running as Republicans on the Alaskan ballot against Mary Peltola, a half-indigenous woman on her mother’s side and a former congresswoman running as a democrat. Trump now claims to have ordered the DOJ to file a lawsuit demanding that Alaska not certify the election if the Republican loses, largely because they believe there will be too much confusion because the Republicans have the same name. Both candidates with the same name have different middle initials and Alaskans to this point have expressed no confusion about which is which. One is the sitting Senator and the other a teacher.

Mary Peltola, though locked in what is considered a dead-heat with the incumbent senator, Dan S. Sullivan, is recently showing increased momentum in what has become historically, Alaska’s most expensive race, with an estimated 80+ million already spent by both sides. Sullivan of course has been a Trump/ GOP lackey, and just like the rest of the Republicans in the senate. He voted for the Big Ugly Bill and to confirm everyone of Trump’s cabinet grotesquely incompetent and cruel picks. Although Peltola has a slight edge in the most recent polls, the senate seat is still considered a tossup.

Next up comes reporting from Politico based on panic by the administration. Trump’s tariffs, overwhelmingly despised by voters, are now being used by the White House to shore up Senator Susan Collin’s flagging campaign in Maine. Mind you, his commitment to reduce his tariffs on Canada, only apply to nine categories of products that are important to voters in Maine. This is just the latest in his attempts to buy voters with commitments, nearly always unfulfilled. For example, Americans have never received his promised tariff return checks of $2,000 although major corporations have, and his promise of a $5,000 check to everyone is contingent on whether or not Republicans can hold on to the House and the Senate.

While there’s little substance yet to this promise, it has been made clear that Trump’s tariffs on Canadian goods, will not decrease. His commitment is only for those nine categories of goods intended to help out Collin’s immediate needs. Roughly 100 new products will be added to the already long list of goods with tariffs in order to make up for those allegedly going to Collin’s constituents. Most Maine insiders see this attempt by Trump to assist Collins, as “too little, too late.” By all accounts, Mainers are done with the false promises from the Republican Party. Aren’t we all?

Here’s another nutty story to most of us, but something high up on a malignant narcissist’s agenda. This story from The Washington Post, and reported elsewhere widely, is about revenge for perceived slights. In an extremely unusual situation, the FBI arrested a career analyst and another high-ranking Counterintelligence officer for allegedly not telling the Trump/ MAGA version in court, about Hunter Biden’s laptop. Neither have been indicted by a grand jury as of yet and considering the typical lack of evidence for these revenge arrests and investigations, it’s hard to see that this will go any further than did former FBI director Comey’s, which was tossed out of court for having no substance.

Even though the emperor has no clothes, it would seem that no Republican in Congress or the administration, has enough of a spine left to speak truth to power. This type of revenge is an identifying factor of those suffering malignant narcissism. It doesn’t matter that his popularity and administration is collapsing around him, he is powerless to stop seeking revenge against anyone he perceives has in some way, wronged him. Republican, Democrat or otherwise, it would appear that he feels like the American people have wronged him, hence his abuse of all of us.

Here we have a story of The Treasury Department attempting to convince voters, just a few days until the election, that Republicans actually care about the people. From the very beginning of his term as Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent’s smug pompous demeanor has won him no friends outside of high-level administration officials, who depend on him to facilitate much of their corruption and treasury theft. Here’s the background for this story; the one piece of true bi-partisan legislation this past summer was a housing bill intended to address the critical housing shortage of 4 million units in the US. Although Congress passed the law, Trump refused to sign it, because he was pouting over the failure of Republicans in congress, to pass the SAVE Act, a heinous voter suppression bill.

Now Bessent, want to use elements of this unsigned law, to convince Americans that this administration really does care about them. Like nearly everything coming from this administration, Bessent’s efforts regarding these elements of the housing bill, are the typical smoke and mirrors, never to be fulfilled. Higher interest rates and the affordability crisis are a double-whammy that is predicted to keep the national real estate market in trouble through at least, most of 2027. Nothing in Bessent’s efforts can change these factors. Like most Republican promises in the Trump era, they are best ignored.

And then there are the endless promises. It’s not like either Trump or the GOP have a winning record on keeping promises, but heaven knows, there are still tens of millions of Americans, that believe them and even worse, don’t hold him accountable when he reneges on them. The closest his followers have come to pushing back against his false promises, was before the bi-partisan bill to release the TrumpStein files. It’s been nearly a year since the law passed and the Republican congress refuses to pressure the White House or DOJ to comply with the law, with less than one handful of exceptions.

And this is where I become concerned about the midterms. As I have explained in detail in past essays, once someone has fully identified with an ideology, it is nearly impossible to alter their identity. Those folks have been both brainwashed and conned, and the odds of them changing are slim and none. It’s just how human brains are wired. Despite the small venues and crowds at rallies or even the disillusionment within Republican MAGA circles, these adherents to their fake conservatism or Project 2025 ideology, will in significant numbers hold their noses, and vote Republican anyway. In short, most GOP voters, may at least partially believe his empty promises and vote against theirs and our own interests, again.

I saved this story for last for a reason. This ad campaign by Vivek Ramaswamy has now become infamous as one of the most vile campaign ads I’ve witnessed in my lifetime. As many know, I was raised in Ohio and still keep up with friends and family. This type of ad had that rare capability, to break through the brainwashing of Republicans. Despite a majority of Buckeyes losing their way during the Trump-era, those of them already tiring of his perpetual dishonesty, cruelty and corruption, will likely see this ad as the proverbial, “straw that broke the camel’s back.” I have heard and seen outrage from friends over this issue and just today, two new polls have changed to “likely Democrat” instead of “tossup” for the governor’s race.

Ramaswamy is now in a terrible position stuck between Trump, who insists on him continuing to run the ad and the voters of Ohio, who are rightfully furious and ashamed of him. It’s been said that Ohio is one of the most polite states in the Union and growing up there, I would have to agree. The viciousness of the allegations in the ad, coupled with the fact that Dr. Amy Acton has been open about the deep traumas she and her brother experienced in childhood, legitimately makes her a victim of Trump and her opponent. To rub salt into the wound, VP JD Vance who grew up roughly a half an hour from where I grew up, joined Ramaswamy and like Trump supports the ad, encouraging Ramaswamy to continue running it. There really is no limit to how low today’s Republicans will go to get their way.

A quick summary

These are only a handful of the political articles overwhelming us at this point in an election year. Still, they are insightful as to GOP tactics, fears and ensuing panic of massive losses. Pundits and polling entities, who think in reality and in math, are missing something, just as they have since the 2016 election. Life is not data. Life is about human beings and how they see reality. This is a particular professional specialty of mine. These pundits and pollsters have been wrong often in the Trump/ MAGA era. I’m not saying that their optimism is fully misplaced, but there are several “tossup” races for congress all across the nation. That should tell you that the brainwashing is still working among long-time Trump followers.

GOP voters vote because of Trump, not because they are Republicans. It’s his identity that they have internalized and that is all that matters to them, even if they don’t see it in themselves. My bottom-line is that in order to take back both the House and the Senate, these next ten days require the most intense effort of the entire campaign. It’s the only way to overcome the so-called “Trump effect.” There is a great deal of psychology behind this but all that matters, is that we know we must “sprint through the finish line,” not just up to it. I look forward to do so alongside all of you. Take back both houses of congress and then, we can begin to hand our republic back to the true patriots of the resistance.

My very best for your weekend,

Paul

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TAT readers,

Today I’m returning to a topic of critical importance to a successful outcome in our midterms, the purchase of our republic by the most dishonest, anti-American billionaires and oligarchs in our nation. It’s crunch time for November 3rd’s midterms and as expected, the GOP has rigged our elections in a wide variety of ways, including buying them. I discussed the “rigging” somewhat in my September 25th essay and today I am adding oligarchy to part of the GOP’s efforts. There’s an extraordinary amount of energy and commitment at the polls for the resistance but if we don’t immediately take the fight to those disgraceful pro-GOP billionaires, we will not succeed as we can and should. It really is that simple. As with many of my essays, some of what follows requires a bit of background, including a short history lesson.

On a personal note, yesterday I stood in line for the first day of early voting here in Texas. I was even interviewed by a local San Antonio news station, only to find out afterwards that it was a FOX News station. Of course they did not air the interview. I don’t watch TV unless it’s on my laptop or a slightly larger monitor, so I didn’t know before-hand that it was a FOX station. I have no doubt that they did not appreciate my answers. Something else of interest I observed while waiting in line with a record number of other enthusiastic voters, was how deeply frustrated and angered we all were, by the billionaires buying our republic and turning it into a hybrid of oligarchical authoritarianism and plutocracy.

Background

Our founders railed against and did all possible to prevent the influence of a elite wealth class having a superior role in our fledgling republic. They intentionally and rigidly opposed such a class, as symbolic of the very type of British aristocracy we were fighting for independence from. Today’s administration and friends, are the same type of aristocracy that our founders were worried about. It would be negligent of me here to not condemn, Chief Justice John Roberts’ Citizens United Supreme Court decision during the Obama administration, that allowed unlimited dark money into our politics, This allows a single donor like Elon Musk and others of his ilk, more say in our government than the rest of us combined. It didn’t stop just with Roberts either. We now have 6 right-wing SCOTUS justices in a super-majority, acting as the spokespersons and personal attorneys for oligarchy. They are not “originalists,” they are sellouts.

"While judicial originalists continue to trumpet the importance of history, they rarely take that history on its own terms. They claim to be wedded to the Constitution’s eighteenth-century meaning, yet they fail to engage in the deeper work of reconstructing the often-unfamiliar understandings of constitutionalism on which that original meaning was based. Justice Gorsuch insisted in Rahimi that originalism was the only thing that could keep judges on the straight and narrow, “seeking to honor the supreme law the people have ordained rather than substituting our will for theirs.”8 Yet in foisting modern constitutional assumptions on an eighteenth-century past that did not share them, jurists like Gorsuch ignore the supreme law those earlier people in fact made. These originalist jurists end up rewriting the constitutional past based on the logic of the legal present. In that respect, their interpretive approach resembles the living constitutionalism they otherwise disparage. A better understanding of early American constitutionalism might not be able to solve all the constitutional problems of today, but it can expose how faithless today’s Supreme Court originalists too often are to the history they claim is the lodestar of our law."

- Why is the Supreme Court Obsessed with Originalism? 
- Yale University Press
- Jonathan Gienapp
- October 24th, 2024

These oligarchs and their subordinate billionaires, yes there is a difference, have also rigged tax law, created monopolies, regularly price-gouge and all other manner of abuse towards us. They do this by buying congressmen, senators, judges, cabinet officials and as we all now know, a president. Congress makes it legal and unethical judges make it possible. In return, those greedy billionaires make themselves wealthier, while that we struggle painfully to live the once possible, “American dream.”

"It’s one of the most important studies you’ve probably never heard of. Ten years ago, political scientists Martin Gilens of Princeton University and Benjamin Page of Northwestern University took an extraordinary data set and a small army of researchers and set out to determine whether America could still credibly call itself a democracy. As case studies, they used 1,800 policy proposals over 30 years, tracking how they made their way through the political system and whose interests were served by the outcomes. For small-d democrats, the results were devastating. Political outcomes overwhelmingly favored very wealthy people, corporations, and business groups. The influence of ordinary citizens, meanwhile, was at a “non-significant, near-zero level.” America, they concluded, was not a democracy at all, but a functional oligarchy."

-  Oligarchy in the open: What happens now as the U.S. is forced to confront its plutocracy problem?
- Harvard Kennedy School
- Professors Archon Fung of HKS and Lawrence Lessig of Harvard Law School
- February 13th, 2025

One last bit of history before moving on to today’s degenerate oligarchy. It doesn’t take a history scholar to find our founder’s prescient objections to oligarchy and a wealthy elite ruling class. Our War for Independence was not simply about liberty, but about freeing ourselves from a political system where titles and wealth denied all other citizens the full use of that liberty. They were every bit as adamant about keeping Europe’s bloody history of religious wars out of our new republic as they were about defanging wealth as a controlling influence in our nascent republic. They were scholars, strong and ethical men, many of whom were in fact from that wealthy class. Still, most of these remarkable men, adamantly opposed a wealthy ruling class. Some of our most prominent contributors to our founding documents, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, were passionate opponents of oligarchy. Below I offer you a couple of their quotes.

"To consider judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions is a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy."

-  Thomas Jefferson

"If all power be suffered to slide into hands not interested in the rights of property which must be the case whenever a majority fall under that description, one of two things cannot fail to happen; either they will unite against the other description and become the dupes & instruments of ambition, or their poverty & independence will render them the mercenary instruments of wealth. In either case liberty will be subverted; in the first by a despotism growing out of anarchy, in the second, by an oligarchy founded on corruption."

- James Madison

From a February of 2025 article in The Atlantic, author George Thomas sums up our founders fears nicely, as can be seen in the quote below.

 "The founding generation’s fear of demagogues is well known. Alexander Hamilton insisted on the problem in Federalist No. 1: “Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants.” The Founders’ concern was really two fears combined: fear of an unscrupulous leader and fear of an unreflective people. What is less well known is that they also feared a third source of power that could damage their grand experiment in popular government: extraordinarily rich Americans whose aims did not align with democracy. With America’s most prominent billionaires lining up to pay homage to Donald Trump at his inauguration, and in particular with the power granted to Elon Musk to make the government more “efficient,” the country is witnessing these three fears come together: a demagogue who unites the self-interested rich with the politically ignorant."

- The Other Fear of the Founders
- The Atlantic
- George Thomas
- February 12th. 2025

Now to our midterms and the purchase of our republic

I’ll begin with a story I know well from here in Texas. Not more than two weeks or so ago, the resistance and other democratic candidates here in Texas were showing close but winning poll numbers. “Hot wheels” the pejorative most Texans use for Governor Greg Abbott had already spent roughly a hundred million dollars for what he believed to be another easy, blood-red opportunity to win another term. He was either tied or behind a state representative of nearly a decade, Gina Hinojosa, who is generating mountains of excitement, along with now nationally famous, James Talarico and others. Then, along comes Elon Musk and the rest of our most infamous oligarchs, with over a hundred million dollars of rescue dollars, including the oil and data center industries. Abbott began this election with a war chest that already had over $100,000,000 in it and raised another $20 million through last December. It had been a waste of money and hadn’t moved him any closer to winning… until Musk showed up.

Both Hinojosa and Talarico do not take PAC money and are being outspent by their Republican challengers. Talarico, with the most campaign funding in senatorial history without PAC money is still being outspent 2-1 and Hinojosa 5-1. Now within the last week or so, the polls are considered a tossup. What’s the difference? Oligarchy! Musk alone chipped in between $158M - $190 million more to Ken Paxton’s Senate run, in just the past couple of weeks. In total so far, he has officially spent $369M on Republicans across the nation. This does not include the help he gives via X where he controls content, visibility and access via a myriad of tactics and technology, including algorithmic bias. Like the other GOP oligarchs, much of his support goes uncounted, thanks to Chief Justice John Roberts and his merry band of oligarchy supporting Republican Associate Justices. The bottom-line to this Texas story is that the so-called resistance, is better described as a David vs. Goliath story. It is no different in every other state in the union, especially those with close senatorial races, like Ohio, Maine, Georgia etc.

Now let’s apply some good ole’ common sense or what I call these days, “uncommon-sense.” As of recent reporting, some $10B has already been spent on the midterm elections. By the time this election is complete, we’ll see at least another billion or so spent. In a nation where most Americans are suffering from the Republican-imposed affordability crisis. There are roughly 174,000,000 million American voters. There is no way that our rapidly declining economy can support $10B in donations via voters alone. Oligarchs and the other selfish billionaires, are providing the rest. As we discussed in the background section, this is the furthest thing from the intentions of our founders. Tragically, this cancerous obsession with money in our elections is malignant and surgically removing it is the only way to save the patient, our republic.

Here’s the problem as we approach election day, this election has been “rigged” for decades by a self-imposed wealthy oligarchy. It wasn’t just rigged for wealth, but to subjugate the American people. Congress has been paying back their oligarchical donors by legislating our subservience to the billionaire class for so long, few citizens alive today can remember things being different. Should this continue without our voting intervention, American democracy will die an unpleasant but foreseeable death in the near future, if it hasn’t already. This election may be one of our last chances to stop the downward and mortal spiral. It won’t be easy, no matter what the polls say.

Buying “white space”

During my years deployed to combat zones in the Counterterrorism effort, killing or capturing HVTs or high value targets provided what we called, white space.” In other words, simply removing an HVT only gave other troops the chance to intervene in the target’s region or neighborhood in order to provide the support to local populations that would make it far more difficult for the target’s subordinates a chance to recover their dominance in that area of operations. This election is no different. Winning in on November 3rd only gives us an opportunity to start dismantling the system that rewards the corruption and money that denies we-the-people, a say in our government equal to oligarchs.

This will require accountability for every single person or organization responsible for rigging out elections via donations or any of the other standard tactics. So long as we tolerate congress writing laws that put billionaire wants over the needs of the people, and judges like Chief Justice John Roberts and his Republican SCOTUS cronies bless them with their legal decisions, we might as well just surrender our democracy now. Repairing and strengthening our republic will be a lifelong project if we are to succeed. We must fully commit to this and charge our children and grandchildren with the same task. The dream of our founders is worth saving, protecting and evolving so long as our republic exists. Human nature and the human quest for power won’t change, so we must perpetually defend our democracy from those obsessed with power at all costs.

So what do we do about the oligarchs and their favorite billionaire buddies? Painful as it is for some of us during this era where so many Americans are struggling to survive, we must take the fight directly to the oligarchs. There are some approaches that hold promise, if enough of us can commit to them. For those who read history, there are some powerful examples of successful tactics and strategies although sadly, they take time that we don’t have for the next two weeks… except for one. That is take the fight directly to the homes, hometowns and businesses of the most offensive and immoral oligarchs like Musk, Thiel, Bezos, Adelson and more.

As you can see by the donors and organizations on this chart, the money spent is roughly two weeks behind and does not include PAC money and “quiet” or masked contributions. There are also countless donations from those like defense contractors that Senator Susan Collins is accused of accepting bribes from. At Trump’s inauguration sat his tech broligarchs, Musk, Zuckerberg of META, Tim Cook of Apple, Bezos of Amazon, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, tech billionaire Peter Thiel and David Oliver Sacks, a South African-American investor in internet technology firms. These men have more influence over our lives than anyone could imagine, and they were all sitting there celebrating the sleaziest politician in American history. Take the fight to them for starters.

If there were ever opportunities for “No Kings” rallies to make a big difference, it would be in loudly and peacefully boycotting these tech broligarch’s homes and business interests. Good, bad or indifferent, these men must learn that we are furious with their government funded research boondoggles that benefits them and not the American people. It’s our money and with the threats to us and the nation via AI, surveillance technology, crypto markets, money laundering via tech and an endless list of other activities their tech supports, we must demand a say to offer input before they risk our wellbeing and lives. They are all part of the covert campaign to impose data centers on all of us without notice or citizen input.

Then take the protests to every single monopoly or trust in the country. For example, the four primary meatpacking monopolies responsible for the high cost of meat on the family table. Don’t forget the protection racket of healthcare and their CEOs, Oil supermajors like ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, British Petroleum, Eni, TotalEnergies and ConocoPhillips, Airlines, big tech, retail and the list goes on and on and on. These entities are exclusively focused on their bottom lines, regardless of the impact on all of us. I saved my personal favorite worst offender for last, the media industry giants who control what we experience and are perpetually involved in “selling” oligarchical narratives disguised as something helpful for us. Now, most US media tiptoes around Trump and his oligarchs so as not to offend them, rather than reporting truth to us, their consumers.

Historically, tax boycotts and general strikes have provided some relief, but when most are struggling to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table, this is more difficult. Throughout history, the wealthy have fought unions and organized labor to deny us the opportunity to take time off to strike. This is a specialty of the Republican Party. They give us just enough to get by and have hope, but never enough to wage war against their pitiful wages and benefits. As I recommended shortly after the last presidential election, take the fight directly to the source of our woes, including the Republican elected officials who’ve sold us out to their patron saints of campaign donations.

It’s well past time to wrap this essay up. We’ve covered a lot of turf on this one, from a history lesson to fighting back against those who buy and sell our elections for their own selfish needs, and at our expense. At risk of being accused of hyperbole with the warnings offered in this essay, I can assure you that this is a most serious threat to our republic and with an absence of any histrionics. Several scholars already believe us to be living under oligarchy now and for the past decade or two. I stubbornly believe that even if they are right, it’s not a death sentence for American democracy and that with enough unified effort, we can cure the malignant cancer of American oligarchy.

Step one is to recognize that we are up to our ears in this threat and agree to unify to stop it. The people we are fighting, use partisan politics to keep us at each other’s throats instead of theirs. It’s well past time to turn the tables on them. With so many Americans suffering from oligarchical abuse, we need each other if we are to succeed in recovering the liberty our founders envisioned. Now that we understand that hyper partisanship is intentional and that we are not each other’s enemies, it is simply a matter of free will to throw off the chains imposed on us by abusive elite wealth. We’ve been through tough times before and not terribly dissimilar to what we are currently experiencing. We succeeded then and can surely do so again. For once, let’s come together and put the American train of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all back on the tracks, so that it can carry us and our grandchildren into a better future. Step 1. remove this government, 2. hold the abusers accountable, including the oligarchs and finally, 3. put in place the guardrails required to keep billionaires accountable so that they do not transform into oligarchs.

Godspeed success for the resistance in the midterms.

Paul

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TAT readers,

Today’s essay was deeply painful to write, simply because this will impact so many people in my life, tragically brainwashed by Trumpism, the MAGA-era GOP and Russian influence operations. Still, what I have to say here must be said “out loud,” and before our November 3rd midterms. I take no pleasure in what follows, other than the knowledge that I am expressing painful truths and concerns, that I believe most readers will share. As background, I have written a handful of open letters over the past couple of years which have led up to this critical moment. For those with interest, those previous open letters are linked below, all of which preceded today’s letter, though are not required for understanding today’s work.

• An open letter to everyone's friends and family that voted for Trump... again

• A second open letter to Trump voters. They won't like this one either

• An open letter for all Americans, in our time of crisis

• An open letter to President-elect Trump - by Paul Cobaugh

For those who’ve seen these essays before or read them now, I exercised all due caution for the feelings of all Americans as I penned them. Still, the old saying, “that truth hurts,” is evident in the content of each. Trump, his party and their oligarchy, have put America on the brink of losing our status as a constitutional republic, and this supersedes the feelings of those who to this day, willfully believe in a completely alternative and un-American reality. Like the previous letters and in fact in all of my work, the intent is not to hurt or take revenge on modern republicans, but to tell the truth. This letter follows my previous intentions.

Thank you as always for following, reading and when possible, acting on the truth provided. If I haven’t said it enough, please accept my apologies for not articulating more often, just how humbly grateful I am for your readership.

Dear Republicans,

Although I’m painfully sorry that it has come to this, unless you are willing to stand up and be counted in the opposition to the adminstration and their party, you are guilty of putting our republic at risk of collapse, especially if you voted consistently for what the GOP has become in the past decade. They are the furthest thing possible from your grandparent’s GOP. Today’s Republicans are also on the verge of ostracizing family, lifelong friends and all honest Americans. MAGA is now synonymous with being an active Republican. They nor you are “conservative,” but are supporting full-blown extreme right-wing violent extremism. I don’t make this claim casually, as that I spent most of my army career in counterterrorism, including deep experience with radicalization. Some of you will never recover from your brainwashing.

In simple language, this open letter is about whether or not I can ever trust you again. We may exchange polite and even warm greetings, talk about old times, or maybe even sports or some other innocuous topic, rather than what has occurred due to your moral negligence over the past decade. At the moment though, trust is very likely, a bridge too far. You have been willfully gullible and now we all pay the price, including you. It’s the first time you have noticed what your brainwashed votes have done to the rest of us. It seemed that you didn’t care a lick when it only happened to people outside of your MAGA cult.

You imposed these shackles onto our relationships, not me or any other honest American who clearly sees what you and your votes have wrought. We have been holding back a full-broadside of “I told you so’s” for the entire decade, and you haven’t even bothered to be grateful that we were patient and tolerant at family gatherings, work or community events. In any other aspect of your life, you seek the input of experienced professionals whether it’s your family doctor, car mechanic, farm journal, lawyer etc. Sadly when it comes to understanding our national reality, you forgo any credible expertise from economists, lawyers, national security experts or the handful of news outlets that still have the courage to write the truth. No, FOX News and their ilk are not on that list and are in fact, the precise opposite.

You just kept repeating and often aggressively, that you “did your research” and that we were crazy or were suffering from that infamous and childish insult, TDS. We mostly shrugged and hoped that you’d snap out of it. My professional expertise told me that you wouldn’t or couldn’t, but as a lifelong optimist and with love and care in my heart for you, I continue to hope. Now you are suffering along with the rest of us from the unconstitutional, un-American and morally bankrupt decisions that your dear leader and his spineless Republican Party have imposed onto all of us, including the rest of the world. Why didn’t our suffering and truth not sway you until you suffered along with us? We even told you that this day would come, but you laughed and called us names only fit for a playground. Only you can and should answer this question to yourselves. I no longer care what that answer is. This is because like the overwhelming majority of Americans, I have known the answer for a decade or more. Your actions for over a decade, prove that you just don’t give a damn unless it impacts you personally.

As hurt, angry and frustrated as we are with you, the midterms are the breaking point. No, please don’t tell us that “it’s just politics.” It hasn’t been “just politics” since you started your “birther bs” regarding President Obama’s birth certificate. In my profession it’s a well known fact that once you influence someone to believe in one conspiracy theory, every one that follows is easier to swallow, much like your idiotic culture wars and overt lies. You are no longer even in control of your own mind and devoid of critical thinking. Any word, phrase, graphic or music associated with your precious MAGA identity will trigger you, just as the professional influencers who turned you into zombies intended. You respond to lies and conspiracy theories as if they are your favorite meal, hungrily devouring them as if it was your last. Now that a pound of ground beef costs more than the indecent minimum wage, you realize that just maybe, you should have listened. You didn’t and probably won’t now either. The rest of us are moving on without you.

Instead of blaming those who did this to all of us, you turned your blame towards those you pejoratively call democrats, “libtards,” heathens or my personal favorites, socialists and “radical leftists.” I seriously doubt that any of you can define any of these terms other than Democrat and that may even be a struggle. Your hate wasn’t just confined to honest Americans though, you binged on hate of “the others.” The others were simply who your cowardly Republican officials and representatives said they were; the poor, homeless, disabled, people of color or those from other countries that you have zero experience with, which includes ignoring the fact that they are human beings too. You latched onto the term DEI like it was gold and refused to stand up for anyone who wasn’t a White Christian Nationalist. This is not speculation. Your actions and inactions, are proof positive.

And then there’s your beliefs in aberrant religious beliefs like Christian Nationalism. Most of you even scoff at the term Christian Nationalism which is in fact, White Christian Nationalism. Every major church in the country has defined and warned Christians about Christian Nationalism. It’s not just the Christian Nationalists either. there are scattering of misguided Jews, Hindus, Muslims and a wide variety of other religious beliefs that also have been conned into believing the MAGA ideology of hate for others. You folks didn’t stop at religion for your hate either. Your poured your ideology into being “anti-DEI,” a code phrase for hating anyone that doesn’t look like, think like or worship as you do. Like my father, I have studied and been exposed to a very wide array of religious beliefs in my life, personally and professionally. I cannot recall a single one that didn’t have its radical fringe, despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of them are adherents to very same human principles of nearly every other religion.

Like your hate of “others” your fake-patriotism is written all over your support for your violent extremist party. These two issues I am certain will anger most of you. Here’s the ugly truth, so long as you support your party’s ideology, synonymous with the GOP’s Project 2025 platform, you are supporting Christian Nationalism and fake patriotic principles. No matter how you twist it, America was not founded as a Christian nation and your support for the GOP clearly demonstrates that you do not believe, “every man is created equal.” I learned at very young age that people are what they do, not what they say. Your support of far-right extremism nullifies both your religious and patriotic claims. Hell, anyone who has read non-revisionist history, a specialty of the GOP, will tell you the same thing I write here. Although I have very rarely heard my Republican family, friends and colleagues express hateful racism and bigotry first-hand, their actions supporting MAGA, tell a completely different story. Again, we are “what we do, not what we say.”

How is it that you have been listening and repeating an unending stream of lies and conspiracy theories for over a decade, and all of a sudden you are shocked that the White House, enabled by your local congressmen and senators, doesn’t give a damn about you? They have been showing you and all of us for over a decade, that their abuse of working Americans is who they are. Your devotion to them and their extremist ideology, makes this who you are as well. You had the same opportunity as the rest of us to actually “do your research.” Instead, you fill your family rooms and phones with nothing but FOX, Newsmax, OAN and far worse. The GOP and their oligarchs have used you for their bottom-line, never once caring about yours. I’m not saying to switch to so-called, “liberal media” but there are plenty of great sources for the public that do a fine job of presenting truth. You have refused to even consider those sources. I know because I have taught them, wrote about them and use them every single time I write one of these essays. If I can find real facts, knowledge and wisdom, you can to… if you actually tried. You haven’t.

Now, billionaires and oligarchs are robbing you and me every single day, and they are all part of the administration’s plan. Congressmen bow down to these Robber Barons, or in modern terms, oligarchs, so that they will fund their campaign and what do you do, you still vote for these treasonous and corrupt liars. Take a good look in the mirror and point your accusatory finger right at back at yourself. Why did you take the rest of us down with you? This is another question that you will have to work through for the rest of your lives. You ignored and injured trusted relationships just so you could proudly put an R next to your name, falsely believing yourself “conservative,” all while worshipping your “golden calf,” a.k.a. Trump. You are not conservatives and should you doubt it, look it up in any decent dictionary or encyclopedia.

Conservatism isn’t murdering US citizens and others in our streets, the GOP is with your tacit approval. Ignoring our constitutional rights of Habeas Corpus, the right to free speech, the right to assemble and seek redress from our government, the right to separation of church and state, the right to a free press, the right to be free from search and seizure without a judicial warrant was your doing, not ours. Ignoring our constitution and celebrating the denial of all of our constitutional rights, denies all of you the right to claim that you’re patriots. Just because you don’t care about losing your constitutionally guaranteed rights, doesn’t give you the right to strip the rest of us of ours with your vote.

Yes, I and the rest of what you call “the resistance” are furious, and your stubborn, misinformed stubborn behavior is the reason. Thankfully, another trait that my father and mother taught me, was to give people the benefit of the doubt regarding their actions. I and the rest of the resistance have given you so many chances in the past decade that it would take AI to calculate them all. Why do you do this to the rest of America? You wouldn’t tolerate it from us, nor should you. For all of your bible-thumping Christian Nationalism, you sure have forgotten the passages in Luke and Matthew that says, “do unto others.” On November 3rd, that grace is over for me, and with very few exceptions. Either get in the game and fight back with honest Americans, or deal with the shame you’ll wear for the rest of your lives.

In family tradition, I will offer one final redemption option to all. No one is demanding that you admit to your abuse of your fellow Americans. All we ask is that you stand up and loudly be counted along with the rest of us attempting to rescue our republic from corrupt and selfish traitors and criminals. If you can rediscover your moral spine, that will be enough for me to reevaluate our relationships. Hopefully you care about those relationships as much as I do, but it’s on you to decide whether to extend your hand, or not. No one wishes to go through life bitter and resentful of those we love and care about, but all relationships that survive, demand that all sides make a courageous effort. Your contributions to such an effort, has been on hiatus for over a decade. If you can do that, then together we can fix our laws so that this will never happen again. There’s plenty of blame to go around but there’s also plenty of opportunity as well, if you can rejoin reality and help us. Your window of opportunity to reach out and regain reality is short with our midterms in but 17 days.

The one thing we should be able to agree on, is that our system is broken. The constitution is our North Star, and we cannot follow it so long as money buys court decisions that overrule it. First things first and that is to remove those in political office without a conscience or a moral spine. These days, the majority of those to be removed are Republicans because every single one of them enabled this administration, but there are others too on the other side of the aisle. The only people that should serve should have the moral courage of our founders, who put their lives on the line to birth our republic. It’s a simple decision for all Americans wishing to call themselves patriots, either get with our constitutional program, or go the way of the Benedict Arnolds, Aaron Burr and the Confederates who seceded from the Union.

The choice is yours and there’s only 18 days left to make it.

Sincerely,

Paul

My fellow citizens, I hope that this open letter or at least parts of it resonate with you. Please feel free to use this fully or in parts in any way you see fit. Sometimes hard truths are easier to share when someone else pens the words. I have had to write several drafts in order to trim some of the more overtly harsh feelings. Most of us are not only fed up but furious as well. That fury though will not help us to rebuild our republic, post MAGA. That rebuilding will become more crucial as time goes on due to the mountain of threats we’ve incurred as a nation, because of Trump, the MAGA GOP and oligarchy.

America suffered from a failed effort to reintegrate the Confederacy after the Civil War and that failure, during Reconstruction only served to become the foundation of the what we see in today’s GOP. It’s as if we are haunted by the same ghosts. The ideology of the old South is little different to today’s Republican Project 2025 in that it supported oligarchy, White Christian Nationalism autocracy and political violence. The Trump/ MAGA GOP era has been very much another civil war with the same ideology. It’s not enough to win. We must heal as well. We also must seek justice post MAGA, not revenge on our MAGA family, friends and neighbors. In some cases this will require enormous restraint, but I am firm in my beliefs that justice and accountability rather than vengeance, are the right path. I will return to this topic in future essays.

Step one for us though… is to dominate the midterms, defeat any and all election interference and seat a congress that restores ethics and effectively enables full-accountability of the GOP and billionaire perpetrators of this era. Again, more to follow in future essays. For today, let’s simply let the Republicans in our lives know, that we refuse to take one more step in their immoral alternative universe.

My warmest and most sincere regards for your weekend,

Paul

Viva la Libertad

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TAT readers,

Today’s essay is a very sensitive topic for veterans and combat veterans, including me. I’ll do my best to carefully layout my case, but do not be surprised if you occasionally encounter my deep frustration and disappointment with every single Republican that still supports this treasonous administration, and their spineless elected representatives. I could never have imagined that I would one day perceive roughly a third of Americans as traitors and fake patriots… but here we are.

Ground zero for this essay is Trump’s reported deal to purchase diesel from Russia. Much like Trump’s recent offer to sell China US weapons, this is, “aid and comfort” to our enemies. Yes, there are a handful of Republicans in congress that are publicly outraged, but like thousands of other opportunities they’ve missed to show us their spine during the Trump-era, their faux outrage will return to submission, once out of the public eye. In Texas we call this “bootlicking,” but the words spineless or submissive also work. Until we completely marginalize these brainwashed and spineless Republicans in office and their voters, our nation will continue to have the worst national security posture of my lifetime.

My specific grievance revolves around the administration’s and Republican-led congress’s acquiescence to using our tax-dollars to allegedly purchase Russian diesel fuel. In plain language, this is “offering aid and comfort to the enemy,” a treasonable offense when Putin along with Xi, are providing targeting information to Iran to use against US servicemembers, ships, bases, facilities etc. Add to this Trump’s offer to sell China some of our most sophisticated computer chips and US weapons, only seals my claim of treason. I really don’t know how else this could be interpreted. We already have at least 21 killed and roughly a thousand wounded troops from the Iran war, and heaven knows the true numbers as that the Pentagon and the administration, continue to play hide and seek with casualty figures.

As a now-retired soldier with years deployed behind me, and like many of my former brothers and sisters-in-arms, I have lost friends and teammates in combat zones and from the after effects. The very idea of a POTUS aiding our enemies, disgusts me beyond description. Our founders felt the same and wrote the requirements for treason into our constitution, the only law specifically defined within. It is deeply painful to watch a sitting US president rendering aid and comfort to the very our enemies who participate in the murder of our servicemembers. What the hell is wrong with Republican voters who continue to deify such a monster and blindly repeat his dishonesty and un-American ideology from rote memory. I call this ideology, The four horsemen of the MAGA Apocalypse: Autocracy, Oligarchy, Christian Nationalism and Political Violence.

Now readers, let’s get down to the reality most Republicans deny.

Yes, Russia and China are our enemies

First and foremost, there is no doubt that both Russia and China are adversaries who daily attack our nation in some form or another. For example, it is common knowledge to all that do not live in a MAGA bubble, that Russia attacked our 2016 election to assist Trump’s candidacy while undermining his opposition. They haven’t stopped since. Putin’s bots, propaganda, censorship and a plethora of other influence tactics, are a constant threat to what we see, read, hear or watch. Tragically, today’s GOP and especially their voters, have been brainwashed and conned to believe any ridiculous lie or conspiracy theory uttered by their leadership. Russia and the Soviet Union before them, have been attacking the US and western allies with propaganda since the 1920s. Many of the divisive propaganda “seeds” they sowed decades ago, continue to bud and blossom to this very day. The MAGA GOP’s ideology represents most of that divisive content.

The only difference now is, that the GOP collaborates with Putin’s propagandists. Russia has been working again to sew chaos and distrust in this election too, aimed at keeping his Trump and friends allies in office.

Iran, N. Korea and dozens of the other nations within Putin and Xi’s orbit, often serve as proxies for spreading their influence against the US and the West in general. Now that we are incompetently led in a senseless war for oil, much like Venezuela, American troops are dying and being wounded by Putin and Xi’s most dangerous proxy, Iran, whom they support in a variety of ways. Both Russia and China have been exposed as providing targeting information to Iran that allows them to successfully track and target US troops. Tragically those troops have often been left defenseless to drone and missile attacks by a dangerously incompetent, Pete Hegseth. In the US we often live in a partial news blackout imposed by the administration as to what’s happening with the war in the Persian Gulf. For those with interest, I wrote an eleven-part series on the war as it progressed. The link to Part XI, is in the embedded link and below the cartoon. Both contain links to all ten preceding parts.

Now that we know that Trump’s best friends, Putin and Xi are participating in dealing death and wounds to US servicemembers, there can be no more doubt that they are “the enemy.” This begs the question, “why does Trump with the full support of the Republicans in congress, spend so much of his time bootlicking Putin and Xi and handing over our tax dollars to Putin for a commitment of diesel. I go into the “why” in the aforementioned eleven-part series but for the moment, let’s get to this issue of the alleged diesel deal.

Here’s where it really gets crazy

According to most credible reporting, the deal is for the US to purchase in excess of 300,000 metric tons of diesel fuel from Russia. Still all we have is reporting because the details remain like everything else in this administration, either non-existent, hidden or manipulated into propaganda. Although the number sounds staggering, experts claim it a relatively small amount that will most likely make little or no difference in consumer prices before the election or afterwards. Most consumers are now furious with fuel prices at record levels and diesel, is the primary fuel that farming, manufacturing and shipping runs on. In other words, how we get nearly everything we purchase or require for work, play and feeding our families.

Even Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina is claiming that this deal, may not even be legal based on a 2022 law that bans importing from Russia except for under specific conditions.

"Sen. Thom Tillis on Sunday denounced President Donald Trump’s energy deal with Russia, warning that the agreement could place American lives at risk — and that the president may be breaking the law.

Speaking to NBC’s Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press,” the North Carolina Republican warned that the president’s deal may violate a 2022 law passed by Congress that banned Russian oil imports unless specific conditions were met, including a full Russian withdrawal from Ukraine.

- Tillis says Trump's Russian diesel deal may be illegal
- Politico
- By Cheyanne M. Daniels
- 10/11/2026 11:43 AM CDT |Updated: 10/11/2026 12:19 PM CDT

Meanwhile, Trump has been pushing President Zelenskyy since early this Spring to stop bombing Russian oil infrastructure and he’s now claiming an “energy ceasefire,” even though President Zelenskyy only learned of it like everyone else did, on a Truth Social post from Trump. Shortly after the announcement, Putin attacked energy facilities in Ukraine, as he always does after agreeing to a ceasefire of some sort. There is no honor among thieves. Trump has become even more aggressive with Zelenskyy recently, blaming Ukraine for high gas prices, not Trump’s war on Iran. Of course this is utter nonsense. The alleged diesel deal comes just two days after Putin’s 74th birthday and famed Russian organized crime expert Mark Galeotti, is quoted as saying, the diesel deal is an "astonishing birthday present" to Putin.

What makes this so-called “deal” even more bizarre is that Russia and Russians are starving for their own fuel, mostly due to Ukraine’s success in targeting Russian energy facilities. Not to mention, Russia is still desperate for diesel to feed its war machine, now losing in Ukraine after 4 years of a cruel war that Putin started. Beginning with Ukrainian focus on imposing hard costs on Russia by targeting energy sectors in the Spring, Russia was and remains in their own fuel crisis.

"Russia's fuel shortages are becoming a budget problem. Ukraine's sustained strikes on Russian refineries are not only damaging infrastructure and squeezing Russia’s oil industry, they are forcing the Kremlin to spend more to keep fuel flowing at home while earning less from exports. That trade-off is becoming increasingly expensive.

The effects are already visible across Russia. More than two-thirds of the country’s federal entities have reported government or privately imposed restrictions on gasoline and diesel sales, while retail fuel prices have risen 3% over the past week. Since late May, intensified Ukrainian strikes have cut gasoline production by roughly a quarter, pushing jet fuel prices at Russian airports up 17% since early June. The Kremlin has already extended its jet fuel export ban through the end of November and is considering a ban on diesel. Russia is also negotiating to import around 50,000 tonnes of gasoline from Kazakhstan."

- Putin's Fuel Dilemma
- RUSI, The Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies |
- Petras Katinas and Natia Seskuria
- 17 July 2026

Russians, even in the capital wait in line, sometimes overnight in lines kilometers long just to receive their weekly ration of twenty liters of petrol. Although Putin remains safe in his autocracy, the Russian people are grumbling over casualties and shortages, especially fuel. Putin has long attacked Ukrainian energy prior to winter, in order to impose more suffering onto a resilient and courageous but exhausted Ukraine. We’ll see what Zelenskyy has in store for Putin’s winter this year.

Things are not going well in Russia’s semi-satellite states in Central Asia either, a region of substantial strategic value that is also suffering from Russian energy losses. China is now eating away at the Central Asian edges of the former Soviet Union, and has become the dominant economic and strategic voice in the region. Putin doesn’t love this but has backed himself into a corner that he no longer has the capacity to exit. Putin needs Xi and Trump just to survive, not conquer. Still, Russia and Russians have a long, dark historical capacity to absorb pain. As much as we’d like it to be so, I don’t see Putin toppling just yet, unless he dies, becomes incapacitated or someone enables his demise.

"Ukraine’s continued drone attacks on Russian oil refineries have rocked not only Russia’s fuel market, but also those of Central Asia. While those countries have their own oil production and refining capacity, for decades it has been both easier and cheaper for them to purchase processed fuel from Russia. Now that the old model is no longer working, the clock is ticking to solve the problem before a full-scale fuel shortage occurs.

The fuel export restrictions imposed by Russia in April 2026 due to Ukraine’s strikes swiftly impacted Central Asian markets. Retail gasoline prices in dollar terms rose by 15–25 percent year on year, depending on the country. As in Russia, the fuel shortage has created additional risks for agriculture ahead of the fall harvest. Uninterrupted supplies of diesel fuel are particularly important during this period."

- Russia Is Exporting Its Fuel Crisis to Central Asia
- Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center
- By Galiya Ibragimova
- Published on Aug 6, 2026

Summing things up

Of course Putin is exhilarated by the announcement of the diesel purchase deal. It’s the best news he’s had all year. Russia isn’t only starving for fuel but it depends on energy sales more than any other single product for acquiring cash. Selling diesel to the US is not only a way to acquire US dollars, but Putin has made Trump into a liability for all Republicans in the midterms. Trump’s willingness to use our tax dollars to fund Putin’s war despite Russian assistance to Iran’s targeting of our military, is a staggeringly overt commitment to giving “aid and comfort” to our enemy.

Putin knows how to offer the world a perception that is favorable to him and the diesel sale is no different. Trump’s perennial willingness to come to Putin’s rescue when the chips are down, demonstrates multiple perspectives to the US citizenry and the world.

• It demonstrates that Trump is subservient to a failing authoritarian.

• It refines the global community’s view of the intended new world order, that sees Xi is at the top, followed by Trump and then Putin at the bottom of the barrel. I also believe that Xi and Putin both benefit from allowing Trump to believe that he’s in “their league.” Trump is so easily played and both Putin and Xi know how to play this game.

• It clearly shows the world that so long as Trump and his sycophantic Republicans are in power, they can continue to undermine global democracy and US influence, at will. I’ve long said that I believe that China is either now the primary superpower in the world, or nearly so. The only way to avoid second-class citizenship among the power elites, is to remove this administration and every single sitting Republican in Congress.

  

• Domestically, Trump is clearly showing that he believes that he no longer needs his Republican base or congressional Republicans. If he did, he would not jeopardize the upcoming midterms to please Putin. Republicans are deservedly taking a beating all-across America. Trump continues to take actions that enrich him regardless of what it does to the party. Congressional Republicans are learning a hard lesson about karma. and I’m here for it.

  I could care less because in my mind, there are no Republicans in Congress deserving of returning. Not one, after blindly supporting all manner of illegal, unconstitutional and cruel actions against the American people, but that’s just me.

My conclusion is that Trump is guilty of treason and the underlying cause, is aid and comfort to the enemy. How many more American servicemembers will die while he gives Putin birthday presents? We have a chance on November 3rd to answer that question. “let’s roll.”

Back late in the week,

Paul

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TAT readers,

Well, we’re down to 23 days until our midterm elections and if you thought it was crazy now… just wait. I haven’t the slightest doubt that our elections have been marginalized and the GOP has been at it for well over a decade. Those announcements that this administration and the Republican Party will “rig” the election, are a “day late and dollar short.” It’s already done except for any new surprises by the administration and GOP in the next three weeks. I addressed this partly in Wednesday’s essay.

"Radical, mid-decade gerrymandering is just one of the ways they have already acted. As a Texan I’m all too familiar with the way state legislatures have passed legislation to legally “rig” elections. Gerrymandering, voter suppression laws, removal of the majority of ballot boxes in “blue” districts etc., are just some of the ways the GOP has already rigged our midterms. This has been going on for years and just last year, Republicans passed 32 voter suppression and similar laws in 17 almost entirely red-states. Winning this election with enough of a majority to make changes in the next congress will be daunting. Cheerleading “go blue” isn’t enough and many of us resisting don’t claim themselves as Democrats. Please remember that resistance is for America, not just the Democratic Party, wherever they are. Resistance is a people’s movement of true patriots."

- Fear of the midterms is palpable for the GOP.
- Truth about Threats
- Paul Cobaugh
- October 7th, 2026

Like the people of Hungary who after 16 years of the depraved, extreme-right wing Putin sycophant, Viktor Orban’s, the Hungarian people united and deposed him earlier this year. Orban too had “rigged” elections. We can do the same to this administration and their duplicitous GOP enablers but first, we need a few tips from the courageous Hungarians’ success. Like today’s GOP, Orban’ had for years, “rigged” Hungary’s elections via a myriad of legislative and obscure rule changes. Still, the people who believed in democracy had, had enough. Orban’s messaging had been for years, similar to the GOP’s, no doubt because they both follow an authoritarian playbook and strategy espoused by and assisted by Putin.

Global leaders like Milei, Bolsonaro and Modi, have all taken pages from that same playbook and used the content for their own personal gain, rather than their people’s. Before them, it was Hitler’s playbook, which had been built on other historical regimes’. One of the primary features of Hungary’s opposition leader, Peter Magyar’s victory over tyranny, was to go all in with engagement of the countryside, or what we call in the US, “flyover country.” Another, was to engage all slices of Hungarian society except for the far-right. Magyar ran as a centrist. These are lessons that today’s DNC have either ignored or struggled with for decades. Trump and the GOP filled that vacuum with the same type of National Inquirer-type propaganda that defines today’s GOP. The result was a solid red voting bloc for decades. That is beginning to change due to Trump administration and the GOP’s debilitating leadership. Why did the DNC ignore rural America for so long?

Still, the DNC largely ignored flyover country or what many of us who hail from there, call the “heartland.” I suspect that if it wasn’t for the issue of affordability, they still would. Another narrative that Magyar and his party succeeded with was that, they were reclaiming the definition of patriotism that like Trump and the GOP, Orban’ had corrupted. In the heartland or anywhere in rural America, words like “patriotism,” God and country are not seen as “corny.” They are words and meanings respected, even when Republicans make a mockery of the meanings. For decades, the DNC acted as if language like this was foreign to them. The GOP didn’t steal those words, the DNC gave them to the GOP, all wrapped up and with a big pretty bow on top.

Rural America rightly bristles at being considered “lesser” educated, sophisticated or worldly. We really bristle at being ignored as well. That’s why when the GOP began engaging with rural voters, they were willing to listen. There are now a bevy of flyover-country democratic candidates, that are breaking the mold made by decades of FOX News-styled marketing of Republican candidates. Many of these newer Democratic voices are women, such as, Senator Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, Dr. Amy Acton in Ohio, Dr. Annie Andrews in SC, Hallie Shoffner in Arkansas and so on, but they are not alone. Other Democratic candidates from traditionally deep red states from Kansas to Texas, are also either competitive or already have winning margins. For once, we can only hope that these candidates are being supported by the DNC, after decades of being ignored.

Rural America is in my opinion, the proverbial, “canary in the coal mine” and presents a successful approach to chipping away decades of right-wing dominance in these mostly ignored regions. Here in Texas a unicorn of a candidate, James Talarico is paving the way. He doesn’t ignore or insult voters traditionally in the opposition. He has primarily made his candidacy one of earnestly talking with, not at voters, regardless of which “side” they are on. He has put the target of his campaign, right where both sides can see it, money in politics. With our currently worsening affordability crisis, his honest, faith-based engagement with voters over our plight regarding affordability, he is not forcing Republican crossover voters (and there are lots of them) into defending their loyalty to their political tribe. Hence, they put down their defenses long enough to realize that all non-billionaire Americans are suffering equally. This isn’t only brilliant, but his sentiments are real, human and forthright.

Those of us who’ve lived in rural America respect his straightforward common-sense and decency. His faith doesn’t offend anyone but Christian Nationalists or the handful of zealots in the GOP from Judaism, Hinduism or similar religions with prominent hard-right factions. He speaks openly and earnestly to all people of faith or no faith at all, without judgement or prejudice. He also is assertively in support of the constitutional obligation, for separation of church and state. Rural Texans, long-abused by thirty years of GOP dominance are listening. A year or so ago, they would not listen at all. Much the same can be said for the other Democrats succeeding across rural America, where faith is often a pillar of society.

The nation’s flyover folks, just wanted to be respected and heard, something Democrats have failed at among other things, for a couple of decades. Frankly, the tsunami of slick, loud and corrosive campaign ads from the right are often despised as much as the left by these honest, grounded Americans. These voters just want fair policy that gives them a chance to achieve the American Dream of work, home, security and food on the table. For the last couple of decades, all the left could talk about was policy and without it ever being made clear what it mattered to our everyday lives. Despite both primary political parties insatiable pursuit of big donor campaign dollars, often from the coasts, it is rural America that feeds us and this current administration is abusing farmers and ranchers as much as any other workers in America.

Some of the reasons that rural America and their surrounding communities are so angry are the same reasons that urban Americans are angry. They can’t afford what the GOP has done to the economy, and we’re nowhere near the bottom yet. Yesterday the White House announced that we’ll buy diesel from Russia to help lower prices for the fuel that keeps our country running. It will not make much difference and is more a political stunt, that a sound policy decision. Furthermore, it keeps Putin’s genocidal war machine going against Ukraine and funds their ongoing hostile acts all across Europe. Other than our cars and lawnmowers that mostly run on gasoline, nearly everything we eat or buy requires diesel fuel in production, transportation and a thousand other critical needs.

The truckers who bring us goods and services are suffering terribly with 16 operators going out of business between August and September alone. Some of course were single operators but the list also includes companies with dozens of trucks and operators. Shipping overseas also depends on fuel to either take our products overseas or bring in the astronomical amount of products manufactured overseas. Record high diesel prices are the primary reason. Farmers and ranchers are suffering far worse. The USDA forecasts that farm debt will increase to a record high of $605.1 billion by the end of this year with farm income declining by $158 billion in the same period. Simply said, it costs a lot more to farm and those who do will make substantially less profit. Farm bankruptcies are up 46% over just last year, and the future looks even bleaker.

Of course, the Iran War has made a decades-long decline in family farms dramatically worse, and for the two primary reasons we hear about in our news feeds, fuel and fertilizer. Over the decades, corporate farming has taken over enormous slices of US agriculture but now, even they are suffering at the bank. Cattle ranchers like farmers are hurting and both are furious over tariffs, the Iran War and poor agriculture policy emanating from Washington. The purchase of Argentine ground beef, most of which was recalled, turned out to be a fiasco that imposed further pain on the meat industry providers. Meanwhile, there are only four corporate meatpackers that control almost all of America’s meat. It’s well past due that we break up all monopolies and trusts.

"In February, a bipartisan group of 27 influential figures in the farming industry, including former heads of commodity groups and USDA officials, wrote a public letter to Congress. The letter called on Congress to reverse the Trump administration’s agriculture policies, citing “tremendous harm” and the possible “widespread collapse of American agriculture.” Echoing a refrain from the first days of Farm Aid that remains true now, they wrote that when farmers suffer, “the entire rural economy is impacted—from schools, to churches, to main street businesses.”

- Tracking the Farm Economy in Crisis
- Farm Aid
- July 22, 2026

Family farming and ranching, the heart and soul of rural America, has been on the decline for decades, largely due to corporate farms and processing monopolies that control most of US agriculture. Not enough attention has been given to the plight of farmers and ranchers, nor do they get the political attention they deserve. Largely the DNC has written off rural America and in their absence, the GOP has courted these rural states with their typical false promises that have only accelerated the corporate takeover of those who produce what we eat. Last December the administration had to offer farmers a one-time $12 billion bailout due to the harm Trump and his Republican-led congress had caused via their disastrous tariff policy, followed by Trump’s Iran war. Farmers and ranchers are not looking for the handouts being offered by the administration, they just want honest work with an honest chance to make a living.

"A handful of corporations control our food from farm to fork. Their unbridled power grants them increasing political influence over the rules that govern our food system and allows them to manipulate the marketplace – pushing down the prices paid to family farmers and driving them out of business. For eaters, extreme consolidation leaves fewer choices in the grocery aisle and higher prices, while corporate-written policies are sparking growing food safety concerns and less transparency in the marketplace. In sum, our corporate controlled food system damages rural communities, local economies, public health and the soil and water needed to sustain food production."

- Corporate Control in Agriculture
- Farm Aid

The longer the Iran war and tariffs remain the primary wounds imposed onto our AG communities, the greater the risk and not just to the AG community. Our economy is suffering painfully. Like most industries these days, agriculture has been reduced to a small handful of corporate interests, or monopolized. We not only must engage rural America, but we must listen carefully to their very real grievances and then act with good policy for all, not just corporate interests. It’s not unsurprising that VP J.D. Vance was an early investor in AcreTrader, a company that focuses on buying up rich farmland, including an interest in heavily indebted or bankrupt farms, for a collective of buyers, often including foreign investors.

I was raised in rural America with farmers on both sides of the family and admittedly am biased towards it. Although the DNC has long failed or in many cases not even tried to engage these communities, it is the GOP that has sold them out to corporate monopolies. The results are fully visible today, especially as we are all experiencing an affordability crisis. You cannot run a country if you ignore half of it, especially the half that feeds us. As a matter of electoral math, the DNC is missing an opportunity to capitalize on the GOP’s negative impact on farmers, ranchers and the communities they live in. I don’t give rural America a free pass entirely for their dedication to the GOP., These reliably “red-states” have long voted against their own self interests. AG jobs and opportunities have disappeared from the Mississippi Delta to the ranches of Montana, especially good ones. I firmly believe that if the Democratic Party stopped seeing them as a “lost cause,” and actually listened, they would find solid, loyal and common-sense oriented voters.

At a time when our nation is at a constitutional, economic and national security crisis, we cannot afford to lose a single ally toward recovering our republic. There is now opportunity in rural America for those that engage honestly and with follow-through. These voters hold much of our future in their hands. Most are recognizing that they have been sold out, especially by this administration and MAGA version of the GOP. After years of neglect, they are cautious of Democrats but due to the affordability crisis, are more likely to hear what reasonable politicians have to say now, more than at any time in the past twenty years or so. Let’s not miss this opportunity to bring “flyover country” back into the American family as respected non-MAGA citizens, rather than allowing them to be continually fleeced by Trump, his billionaire buddies and FOX News, who apparently don’t care whether they eat, have housing or can go to a doctor without going bankrupt.

As a Texan, I am seeing positive change from our rural communities every day. The Argentine beef fiasco definitely took a toll on their loyalty to the Texas GOP. If deep-red Texas can do it, any state can. In the next three weeks, it’s going to matter how well we support those candidates running against Republicans without the courage to stand up to the White House.

All my very best for your weekend,

Paul

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TAT readers,

First and foremost, I wish to thank all of you for your patience during my last week or so of inactivity. You also deserve an explanation. The truth is simple, I simply a bit burned out and it took a toll. Now I’m back and ready for the sprint to the midterms by continuing to write truth. Frankly, I believe that digging for and explaining truth about my areas of expertise to my fellow citizens is one of the ways that I can still best contribute to our national security, my long-time profession. I will continue to highlight what I believe to be the most severe threats to our republic. Currently, the administration, their subservient Republican-controlled congress and their base, are threats that supersede all others. Anyone who has read my work for a little while well knows the reasons why. For newcomers, my archives are free to read and do as you please with them. Hopefully sharing them is one of your options.

I am certain that the majority of readers don’t feel much different than I do, regarding burnout. From before the 2016 election, our form of government and our constitution it’s based upon, have been under sustained aggressive assault by a treasonous political movement called MAGA, now synonymous with today’s GOP. In 27 days we have the opportunity to put an end to this phase of their assaults by flipping the House of Representatives and with a little luck and hard work, the Senate too. But let me be clear, should we succeed, this is only step one of relieving the pain.

Afterwards, we need elected officials willing to pursue the following;

1. Accountability for, rather than revenge on those complicit in enabling this administration and GOP via illegal actions. There is no room for Chief Justice John Roberts’ “immunity” for the types of traitors and thieves supporting or empowering either.

2. Overturning Citizens United

3. Significantly reducing the impact of foreign and domestic influence operations on our elections

These topics will continue to reoccur in my writing at a later time but for today, I’m on fire to get back in the game and support a full-court-press to put an end to this Republican-led congress. As a Texan, I am used to “full-contact” political fights and this will guide my perspective for the next four weeks. Take off the gloves America, because as we have already seen, the White House and the congress will do and say anything to get their way whether legal or not. The political politeness I was raised with, doesn’t apply in this election. Without a hint of hyperbole, this fight is as they say, “for all the marbles.”

Today’s GOP is terrified and the signs are everywhere. These next four weeks are precisely the time to “kick them when they’re down.” Not physically of course, but they are intensely vulnerable from the Iran war, the economy, their corruption and a thousand other issues. Now isn’t the time to ease up on their well-deserved political beatdown. This particular beatdown has been coming since the late 1970s when the now infamous Newt Gingrich held power on the floors of congress and Republican White Houses. In the Trump and MAGA era, Gingrich’s scorched earth policy of opposing the other side of the aisle regardless of what they proposed, has grown into a Godzilla-like monster, apparently without restraints.

That same monster now condones breaking the law, ignoring our constitution and as we’ve seen with decades of virulent far-right violent extremism, including GOP sanctioned ICE violence murdering US citizens and skyrocketing deaths in detention, the GOP expresses themselves with violence nearly as much as with propaganda. Neither are American values. Now, only because of the midterms, there have been announcements by the administration that some of ICE and other Executive Branch law enforcement tactics are to be halted or at least for the moment. As my UK friends would say, “bollocks” a rude UK saying roughly synonymous to BS.

The point being, that these BS claims to be reining in ICE are nonsense, insincerely meant to assuage some of the grievances the American people have with all aspects of the current regime. Like Trump’s threat to launch a massive attack on Iran “after the midterms” those commitments are merely pauses to avoid losing any more ground in his deeply depressed polling numbers.

So if you are wondering why I am sharing Trump’s polling information even though he is not on the ballot, it’s simply because Republicans in the 39 states where he is tanking, are trying to distance themselves from him, even opting to not have him campaign for them or with them. Don’t let them. Every single one of them are complicit. I haven’t an ounce of sympathy for any of these obsequious cowards. To a person, they have all enabled the treason, criminality and attempted obliteration of our constitutional republic. GOP candidates whose jobs are threatened have reduced or eliminated his name presence on their campaign websites, offered some token resistance on issues like the illegal war with Iran and even flatly told him “no,” don’t come to my district, and some had to say no, more than once.

Most Republicans breaking with or at least distancing themselves from Trump are doing so over the Iran war, but they are not all willing to sign legislation to do so. This is a relatively safe issue for them since the war is unpopular with roughly 60% of Americans, including Republicans. This position will surely not go over well with the White House, but it just may save them a few votes in their districts. Like the President, these legislators have given us little to no reason to believe anything they say. It’s a pretty sure bet that if they survive November 3rd, they will go back to enabling everything happening in the White House.

In Ohio where I was raised, Senator John Husted is one of these Republicans trying to walk the line trying not to upset Trump but still retain his seat in the Senate. Another right-wing extremist Buckeye, Warren Davidson, is trying the same. In Florida, Congressman Byron Donalds is running away from Trump like he’s an Olympic sprinter, removing nearly every single reference from his website. In Missouri where I was born and my mother’s family hails from, there is consistent and similar messaging avoiding associations with Trump and the GOP agenda. It’s no wonder they are running away from their Project 2025 agenda. Missouri Republicans have seen some major setbacks over the past couple of months, such as the Supreme Court denying their redistricting plan and last week’s humiliating scene caused by a bumbling, poorly informed Senator Eric Schmitt during the Jack Smith hearing.

"But maybe the clearest evidence can be found on your television and social media feeds.

Republicans are defending their two-thirds majority in the Missouri House this fall, and a series of new ads supporting GOP candidates in competitive districts has settled on a remarkably consistent message:

These Republicans aren’t afraid to stand up to Republicans."

- Some Missouri Republicans are stressing independence from GOP in 2026 campaign ads
- Missouri Independent
- Jason Hancock
- October 6th, 2026

Here in Texas, there is outright panic in the Republican camp. Congressmen, state legislators, administrative candidates and even Governor “Hot Wheels” Abbott are now backtracking as well, especially over the issue of having data centers shoved down the throats of Texans, much like the mid-decade redistricting. The redistricting fiasco was unpopular with Republican Texans too. Many of those to be impacted by surprise data centers come from the TX GOP’s base, rural voters who have long been reliable supporters. Now they are defecting and demanding answers about the data centers and even “affordability” issues, something Hot Wheels and the Texas Taliban, a.k.a. Republican Party of Texas haven’t given a damn about for decades. Our property taxes are near national high and Hot Wheel’s answer is to stop property taxes that fund our schools. The TX GOP has been defunding and undermining our public schools for a couple of decades. Texas is ranked in the bottom ten nationally, for public education.

And then there’s the performative Republican apologies and claims to have long been against the Trump agenda. Just in the past couple of days, Associate Justice Samuel Alito gave a rare interview, of course on FOX News to promote his book, attempting to recover some of his judicial dignity. No one is buying it. He even complained about some of the hostile rhetoric from the White House, Congressmen, the media and individual citizens. Then there’s retiring Senator Thom Tillis from North Carolina explaining his regrets about supporting RFK Jr. and Pete Hegseth. Of course he too is on a book tour and like the end of the first Trump administration, one of the first to embark on an apology tour. These guys forget that we watched them perform their scurrilous deeds, often in public hearings and talk shows on the campaign trail etc.

This election, 71 House Representatives and Senators have opted to not run for reelection, 11 from the Senate and 60 from the House of Representatives. In both cases, Republicans are leaving at nearly double the pace of Democrats. This even exceeds the number of 65 in 1992 after Bill Clinton was elected and after 12 years of Republican rule by Reagan and H.W. Bush. Twelve years that ran concurrently with Newt Gingrich’s tenure at the right hand of both, left America disillusioned with Republican management of our economy and the same fledgling far-right Christian Nationalism, preferential treatment of the rich and the dramatic cuts to the national social safety net in order to put money into defense. These are very clearly recurring cycles in US politics in my lifetime.

As I try to wrap up this first essay back at my desk, I wish to remind everyone that I am not merely recounting what many of us read, listen or watch but am making a specific point. In sports we often talk about “shifting momentum,” which also applies also to politics. What I am suggesting is that the midterms may look promising but especially this midterm, we must remain assertive and energized in tying Republican candidates to Trump’s abuse. We cannot and must not take prevailing polls for granted. Our efforts to pry American-styled democracy back from the hands of autocrats, must be a sprint to the finish line. The adminstration and the GOP have already put their fingers on the scale of the midterms and again, enjoy Russian support.

Radical, mid-decade gerrymandering is just one of the ways they have already acted. As a Texan I’m all too familiar with the way state legislatures have passed legislation to legally “rig” elections. Gerrymandering, voter suppression laws, removal of the majority of ballot boxes in “blue” districts etc. are just some of the ways the GOP has already rigged our midterms. This has been going on for years and just last year, Republicans passed 32 voter suppression and similar laws in 17 almost entirely red-states. Winning this election with enough of a majority to make changes in the next congress will be daunting. Cheerleading “go blue” isn’t enough and many of us resisting don’t claim themselves as Democrats. Please remember that resistance is for America, not just the Democratic Party, wherever they are. Resistance is a people’s movement of true patriots.

Most family, friends and colleagues know me to typically be patient and like my father, someone who gives most the benefit of doubt. Elected Republicans in the Trump era, have exhausted my patience and most likely, yours as well. Not one single elected republican from either my local area all the way to the White House, are any longer deserving of our patience. What they are deserving of after enabling all that has been imposed onto us, is our scorn and the political attacks tying them to Trump. This ensures that they can never escape their connection to Trump, his favorite broligarchs and their combined decimation of our national security, all around the globe.

I will sign off by saying that I am deeply grateful for your patience while that I fought off burnout. I am back and ready to continue writing about our most dangerous national security threats. Until after the midterms and we ensure that the Republicans accept the results, taking down the republican-led congress and their state level cohorts, is threat number one.

My very best to all,

Paul

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TAT readers,

I’ve haven’t been feeling up to writing this week, but will attempt to get an essay out over the weekend. I apologize for the absence and wish everyone a most wonderful weekend.

Paul

TAT readers,

Thank you for your patience while I took off for a road trip to play with grandchildren. It is they and your children and grandchildren I think of when I write TAT. I once worked for a military command whose unwritten mantra was, “leave it better than you found it.” This weaves elegantly into family tradition of “service to the greater good.” This publication operates on a combination of those principles and telling the truth, even during the maelstrom we are now living through, is part of “leaving it better than I found it.” Telling the truth isn’t always popular, but it is soul-soothing, especially when it is so difficult to find in our current media shadow. That TAT continues to grow and resonate with you the readers, is due to your interest in the truth and I applaud you. There are no proper words to express the depth of my gratitude for your continued support and passion for truth, uncomfortable as it sometimes can be. Today’s essay involves some of those hard truths.

Introduction

Here’s the premise in a nutshell. November 3rd will be the most critical election for America since 1860, which precipitated the Civil War. The risk is the same as that painful era in US history and which was based on very similar ideology that we face today in what the GOP has become. I take no pleasure in saying this “out loud” but this essay is largely built on this unassailable fact. They are not the only ones though and the left has some issues as well, despite the fact that they tend to keep their interests between our constitutional guardrails. These two political parties are not the whole of the problem though. We’ve allowed for oligarchy to buy our government and just voting will not change this. To be perfectly frank, the way we allow political parties to act in our nation, reinforces oligarchical power. Our founders found this obscene, despite some of them being to some extent, a bit oligarchical.

"to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions: a very dangerous doctrine indee[d] and one which would place us under the despotism of an Oligarchy. our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so. they have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privileges of their corps. their maxim is ‘boni judicis est ampliare jurisdictionem,’ and their power the more dangerous as they are in office for life, and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective controul."

- Thomas Jefferson to William Charles Jarvis, 28 September 1820
- National Archives
- Founders Online

The question for us, is why we allow these cancerous oligarchs to use and abuse us, we-the-people? Political parties are most often the vehicle they use to further narrow our rights, livelihoods and opportunities. They use party politics to advance their interests over ours in the halls of congress. We allowed this as much as they took it from us. I’m one of those, back-to-basics” kind of guys and the second part of this essay regarding, “what comes next” is a plea for us to get back to the intent of our founders instead of chasing “parties” and movements because we are too conditioned to the current system, to reinvigorate what our republic was intended to be. As a disclaimer, I am not advocating for that nonsense that the oligarchy supporting Republicans sitting on our Supreme Court bench call “originalism,” but the values that not only inspired our founding documents, and were written into them. For the record, our primary founding fathers most responsible for those august founding documents, were what today would either be called “woke” or “radical progressives.”

As of May 2026 there were at least 55 distinct ballot-qualified political parties in the United States. Some parties are recognized in multiple states. For example, both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are recognized in all 50 states and Washington, D.C..[1][2][3] Three minor parties were recognized in more than 10 states as of May 2026:

Libertarian Party: 35 states
Green Party: 20 states[4]
Constitution Party: 12 states[5]

- Ballotpedia

Reality

In addition to these 5 primary parties, there are also movements and definitions such as, the Democratic Socialists, MAGA, Progressives, Libertarians, The Boogaloo Movement, QAnon, pro and anti abortion movements and so on and so on, etc. The actual lists are more numerous than possible to list. Don’t worry, I’m not going to dig into each. My point is that we’ve created so many labels that I don’t believe folks even remember what the core of being American means. Each one of these entities require resources and to acquire them, must pit themselves against each other in order to show that they deserve our hard-earned dollars more than the “other guys.” This dilutes the odds for successfully fending off oligarchical assaults on our lives.

The oldest military strategy, now part of political doctrine is to, “divide and conquer.” Allowing America to balkanize on the political battlefield, via competing beliefs and ideologies may hold interest for many, but what’s the problem with just trying what we were gifted with by our truly gifted founders, a constitutional republic? Every time we turn around, someone is offering some new party or movement rather than refining and perfecting what we already have. There’s something for everyone if we ran our nation as our founders foresaw. Of course with the exception of those who wish to tear it all down, like the Trump-era Republican Party, Anarchists, Accelerationists and more. Accelerationists may be the worst of the bunch as that it includes the worst extremists of both right and left, who don’t mind helping each other, “tear it all down.”

"Accelerationism is the belief that specific forces—historically economic—should be accelerated to effect societal change. Some far-right groups have adopted a violent form of accelerationism to promote terrorism and other violent acts in order to hasten the downfall of a societal order they believe is complicit in white genocide.

Accelerationism is historically linked to Marxism and the belief that accelerating detrimental forces within capitalism will ultimately lead to its destruction. The accelerationism of the far right is inherently violent. White nationalist groups such as The Base believe that the current societal order is inherently corrupt and therefore unsustainable. The Base calls on its followers to execute non-attributable terror attacks to destabilize society in order to hasten a race war that will overthrow the government and reshape society."

- Counter Extremism Project
- Accelerationism

In the next 38 days, we must focus, because so long as we allow ourselves to be distracted and divided by all of these parties, groups, movements etc., we cannot focus on the task at hand, unifying to rid ourselves of this unprecedentedly corrupt and unconstitutional administration. As for labels, the current administration is worthy of several political or extremist labels but they do not matter at this point. They must go and we cannot do that so long as we allow the dark money going into these parties and movements, to distract us from their theft and power grabs. This is no different from a pickpocket bumping into you as a distraction, in order to lift your wallet.

Here’s the reality of November 3rd; we’re going to have to fight for free and fair elections as well as defending the results. I have no doubt that if you are reading this you well recall January 6th, 2021 as Trump’s and the GOP’s violent and armed insurrection. Not one person is currently being held responsible and don’t even get me started on the Supreme Court’s “immunity” ruling. The point being, the administration and their sycophantic co-conspirators on the right side of the aisle in Congress, now have far more power than they did on January 6th. We may literally have to fight and no one should dismiss this potential conflict as far-fetched. The odds of armed conflict are something I’m considering writing on as conditions continue to develop.

Our most prominent founders are rolling in their graves at the thought of elite wealth running the country. Our constitution is anti-oligarchical by intention. We’ve been through this several times in our history, most famously during the Robber Barron era or even in the 1930s when a handful of Americas wealthiest, old-money oligarchs hatched a plan for a coup against FDR, allegedly financed by JP Morgan, Irénée du Pont, Robert Sterling Clark, Grayson M.P. Murphy, and Prescott Bush.

I will wrap up this first part with something that will probably anger some on the left too. Shouting, “blue wave” may be expedient in reclaiming the White House and Congress this election season, but even so, that will not solve our core problems for the long run. Winning in November will require voters of all political persuasions banding together. We can’t afford to lose potential conservative allies by rubbing their nose in hyper-partisanship. I get it, because I’m angry too. Anger can be a motivating emotion but we’ll have more success in November by channeling it into a welcoming hand for dispossessed Republicans. Save the real anger for the administration and unrepentant Republicans. If Trump acts on his election interference plans, that anger will come in handy.

Yes, although for most it’s hard to believe, but there are frustrated, embarrassed and angry true conservatives too. Republicans today that still support this current regime, are not conservatives by any stretch of the imagination, they are far-right extremists. Please remember that the most principled conservative in the modern era was Eisenhower and his 1956 platform was not terribly different from Joe Biden’s. There is strength in principled bi-partisanship, especially this year. America was not dissimilarly divided prior to WW II and yet when the chips were down, we came together to defeat fascism. We can unite to do so again, with frustrated principled conservatives.

The real problem is money and those who have engaged in rigging the system for themselves and against us. If we don’t address the money issue, the oligarchy will still buy congressmen, judges, organizations and yes, even the president. For the past few elections, the money that poured into DNC coffers, has been a poor investment based on their consistently hapless performances. Even now, the party seems rudderless and without any visible sign of where your donations are going. This of course is different for specific candidates and issues, but the party itself is ghosting everyone. If you must contribute, demand answers and results.

The answer for our political woes cannot under any circumstances, be solved by one party. It will take every honest American willing to relearn their middle school civics lessons as quickly as they forget partisanship just to be able to come together and purge our politics of those capable of buying it. Next up is to take on the grossly inequitable tax code and the lobbyists who do the dirty work for the oligarchy. Last but not least, we should support no candidate unwilling to pursue justice and accountability aggressively, not for revenge but for justice. If we can do these few things, our republic will have a chance. There are countless other required fixes, but right now, we need candidates for office willing to take on these essential first tasks.

If the DNC wishes to finally get in the game, now is the time to put together the agenda for 2028, and much to the dismay of the Democratic Socialists and the Progressives, the winning solution is moderacy, not radical change. What the Bernie Bros never understood and the Democratic Socialists now struggle with, is that there is room for their voices if and when we push the Republicans out of control. Their penchant for highlighting their socialist fervor at this stage of the game, is no different than waving a red cape at an injured bull. It’s simply no way to win allies across the aisle or to diminish the obstacle of vocal MAGA Republicans who intimidate their more moderate neighbors, often discouraging them from voting. American voters on the right, are terrified of “socialism, Marxism and communism",” simply because those fears were instilled in them by GOP propaganda, still with assistance from Moscow. The truth is, Russia has never stopped helping Republicans.

Since Xi is now in Washington D.C. and Trump is sucking up to him, it is important to clearly understand the following insight from a national security perspective. Putin needs Trump. Trump needs Xi, and Xi needs Russian territory. Until things change, I highly recommend remembering this little equation. It explains a lot about what is happening in the world. I’ve written on this in detail in the past and often.

Not all Democrats will be pleased with targeting oligarchs because some of them, are also recipients of their support as well. Still, things are changing regarding “buying elections.” Ironically, most Republicans are uncomfortable with this as well, especially after Musk, Thiel and others stole our personal data and shut down the social safety net programs and healthcare that Americans depend on. Here in Texas, James Talarico is running for office free of PAC money, and it’s something that has inspired Texans to crossover and support him. Getting money as far from our political landscape as possible could be the beginning of a trend. Whoever “gets clean” first, will win the support of more voters. I don’t say this will be easy, but considering the damage done by not doing so, this may be a future path towards extricating us from dark money in our elections. Someone has to lead and there is no reason to trust the opposition.

The primary legislation to focus on should the resistance control congress, is a massive reworking of the tax code. This would really be a Big Beautiful Bill that we all could celebrate. The inequity between what working Americans pay and the tax giveaway to the top 1% made possible by this overtly corrupt, Republican-led Congress, is blasphemous to the intent of our founders. Be advised though, this will be a fight to the finish because that top 1% and their overpaid lobbyists, will throw everything they have at any attempt to make them pay their fair share. If I were a young congressman looking to make a name and do good at the same time, this is the issue I would focus on aggressively.

Then there is the issue of accountability for the criminals, frauds and corrupt members of the Republican Party and the administration, including Trump. As earlier noted, we must never become what they are. We must seek justice, not revenge. Values are meaningless unless they are lived. Winning at any cost, is a sign of our times whether in politics, sports or anything else. Well over a million US servicemembers have died for our stated values. If we don’t live them, their deaths were in vain. I am shocked at the lack of ethics in so many professions in modern America. These days, business ethics are as big a joke as ethics in journalism for a large portion of professional in those fields. They are not alone, and this brings me to my final point. Judicial ethics.

I won’t beat this point into submission but most Americans feel and with significant justification, that our SCOTUS must be held to ethical standards. To assert that Associate Justices such as Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch etc. are above the law and a code of ethics is absurd. Considering that these justices especially have shown favor to not only wealthy individuals but Chief Justice Roberts opinion regarding the Citizens United case, opened the door to buying elections altogether. Just one or two elite billionaires, can now have more power than all US voters combined. There is no possibility that our founders would approve. Personally, I am fond of saying that the Republican Justices addition to “originalism” is pure bullsh$$!

"Today’s ethics problems are symptomatic of a Court that has ridden roughshod over any attempt to cabin its power.189 Enforcement of ethical rules at the Supreme Court cannot wait on the Justices, nor should it wait on future legislation. The Court is not the only institution tasked with interpreting the Constitution. The Executive regularly makes constitutional determinations in exercising its power to take care that the laws are faithfully enforced. Congress is faced with a constitutional question every time it legislates. An impending constitutional question does not require inaction — if anything, it encourages action to spur its resolution.190 While potential legislation is being debated,191 Congress can act now based on its own interpretation of the Constitution and the multitude of avenues it has to check the extrajudicial behavior of the Justices. Starting the conversation between Congress and the Justices is the most viable way to restore the damaged legitimacy of this Court."

- Judicial Ethics, Chapter 3
- Harvard Law Review
- Volume 137 Issue 6
- April 9, 2024

An enforceable code of ethics in addition to impeachment, must be mandatory and all because of the behavior of the Chief Justice John Roberts SCOTUS. Most Americans feel as if there are at least two legal standards in our republic, one for the elite and another for the rest of us. In most cases, I heartily agree, especially in the Trump era. This SCOTUS will not improve as that they have no intention or motivation to. The phrase “all men are created equal” is nothing but satire, unless we make it so. Only a massive, unified win in November and followed by a focused, assertive congress intent on reform, can put us back on the track of a constitutional republic that honors our values and traditions.

I have kept all of you now for quite a while and for those who’ve seen it through to the end, I am humbly grateful. As for November, I believe that honest Americans are up for this fight and that we’ll win if we persist. Make no mistake about it though, it will be a fight. Like Doctor Benjamin Franklin’s famous quote in response to Elizabeth Willing Powel's question upon leaving the convention hall after our constitution had been ratified: "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" Franklin simply replied, “a republic if you can keep it.”

I have every confidence that if we work together, yes, we can keep it.

My very best for your weekend,

Paul

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TAT readers,

Hold onto your hat because today’s essay will be startling to most Americans, but is well-grounded in US, Nazi and partially world history. The current Republican Party is operating on a Project 2025 inspired WW II Nazi Germany term called Gleichschaltung, or in English, the process of the Nazification of Germany in the years leading up to WW II. Today I will try and connect the dots in a way that helps readers understand the connection between Nazification, Eugenics and parts of the Republican blueprint established in Project 2025. No, I’m not crazy and this is no conspiracy theory. Eugenics is a topic quietly discussed if discussed at all, simply because it is so vile, that they are terrified that we all will better understand. They are correct in that yes, connecting the dots can seem a bit confusing and difficult to follow. Herein is my challenge, to connect the dots in a way that is easier to follow.

Before beginning, I’ll add quick anonymous thank you to a former military friend and colleague, who is also a brilliant scholar of history and influence operations. It was he that triggered my memory, reminding me that Nazification was English for Gleichschaltung. I will not mention his name here for professional privacy reasons, but should he read this essay, he will understand that I am thanking him. I have zero aptitude for the German language and often can’t even remember the other languages I have spoken in my life other than English. I guess my brain just isn’t wired that way. One last administrative note is that, this will be my last essay until late next week. I have an opportunity to spend time with grandchildren for a few days… and that comes first.

Gleichschaltung

Definition: A German term meaning "coordination" or "bringing into line," referring to the Nazi policy of establishing total control over all aspects of German society by eliminating independent institutions and forcing conformity to Nazi ideology.

Literally translates to "switching to the same" or "making equal."

Historical Context

Gleichschaltung was implemented by the Nazi Party between 1933 and 1935 to systematically eliminate political opposition and transform German society into a totalitarian state. This process involved:

Dissolving independent trade unions and political parties
Taking control of state governments
Coordinating cultural and educational institutions
Establishing Nazi control over professional associations
Forcing compliance with Nazi ideology across all sectors of society
The term represents one of the key mechanisms by which the Nazi regime consolidated power and eliminated democratic institutions in Germany.

- Gleichschaltung

In respect to today’s essay, we’ll first look at how Eugenics evolved from it’s shaky science roots and became the justification for the deviant extermination of millions of minorities, most prominently, six million Jews during the Holocaust. When Hitler wrote Mein Kampf, published in two volumes in 1924-1925, He would proudly assert that he had used a 1924 US law called, strategy for creating his intended, master race. That US law was, The U.S. Immigration Restriction Act of 1924. This US law was an outgrowth of the prevailing political trends of the time, which fully embraced the false science of believing that people of color, eastern Europeans and Jews etc., were racially inferior. Even big names like the prestigious Henry Cabot Lodge, Margaret Sanger and Madison Grant were worried about “racial suicide.” If this sounds like the talking points of today’s GOP, it’s because it is and the historical roots are easily traced.

Over the decades, various forms of this anti-immigrant bigotry has reared it’s ugly head across our nation, often leading to transformative eras like the zenith of the KKK, the Civil Rights Movement, the extermination of and oppression of our indigenous populations, to name but a few. The pseudoscience of Eugenics, based on anti-immigrant bias and racism, underpinned all that followed in one way or another. Even today, the administration’s embrace of pushing AI before it’s safe, is just one more data point among many of the GOP’s willingness to allow citizens to die, rather than invest in us. The lethal virus of bigotry, has never been entirely absent from our nation, and when it does rear its ugly head, violence and death follows. Leaders at home and abroad embraced Eugenics as the justification for curating their own domestic populations into homogenous ethnicities, most often white and Christian at the expense of all others. The Nazi party took Eugenics to a whole other level with the Holocaust.

Thanks for reading this far through the historical background. The Republican party endorses and enables every un-American and deeply unconstitutional element of Project 2025. P2025, is very much in line with the process of Nazification in Germany. The intent is the same, take control of every aspect of our government and society and impose extreme right wing ideology, which I have labeled, The four horsemen of the MAGA Apocalypse: Autocracy, Oligarchy, Christian Nationalism and Political Violence. P2025 becomes like the old saying, “if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.” The Republican agenda then is nearly the same as Nazification. This is not by accident. The five bullet points below are from Nazification policy of 1933 Germany under Hitler and the Nazi Party. This is roughly synonymous with what P2025 states. The evidence can been seen in our daily headlines from reputable press along with comparisons between Hitler and the Nazi Party agenda, with today’s Project 2025.

First, how did Hitler and his thugs take over Germany so rapidly? Below are some of the highlights. P2025 comparisons can be found in the links below the Nazification highlights.

"Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933, and soon brought an end to German democracy. Guided by racist and authoritarian ideas, the Nazis abolished basic freedoms and sought to create a "Volk" community. In theory, a "Volk" community united all social classes and regions of Germany behind Hitler. In reality, the Third Reich quickly became a police state, where individuals were subject to arbitrary arrest and imprisonment.

On February 27, 1933, the Reichstag (German Parliament) building was destroyed by fire. Hitler used this incident to assume extraordinary powers in Germany. Constitutionally protected personal freedoms were suspended. 

In March, Hitler introduced a bill that would give his government the authority to make laws without submitting them for a vote in the Reichstag. The bill, called “The Enabling Act,” passed in part because many of Hitler’s opponents had been arrested and could not vote. 

In the first months of his chancellorship, Hitler began a concerted policy of "synchronization," forcing organizations, political parties, and state governments into line with Nazi goals and placing them under Nazi leadership. Culture, the economy, education, and law came under greater Nazi control. Trade unions were abolished and workers, employees, and employers were forced into Nazi organizations. The Nazi Party became the only political party permitted in Germany. The Reichstag became a rubber stamp for Hitler's dictatorship. Hitler’s will became the foundation for government policy.

The appointment of Nazi Party members to government positions increased Hitler's authority over state officials. A purge of the Storm Trooper (SA) leadership and other supposed opponents, known as the “Night of the Long Knives,” won Hitler greater support from the army. According to the Nazi Party's leadership principle, authority flowed down from above and absolute obedience towards one's superior was expected at each level of the Nazi hierarchy. On August 2, 1934, President Hindenburg died. Hitler was the leader of the Third Reich."

- Nazi rule
- Holocaust Encyclopedia
- Author(s): United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC
- Last Edited: Sep 16, 2026

A close read of the history above should make it clear that P2025’s application, shows little difference from Nazi policy in the first year or two of Nazi rule in Germany. Most Nazi policy of the Nazification era was less adamant about mass murder but it was implied strongly and then carried out far more excessively than implied. P2025 is no different.

• Project 2025; part cheerleading, part war plan and all, bullets of BS, aimed at the heart of American Democracy.

• Project 2025’s Plan for Criminal Justice Under Trump | Brennan Center for Justice

• The Top 5 Ways Project 2025 Would Hurt Disabled People - Center for American Progress

• 37 ways Project 2025 has shown up in Trump’s executive orders

• Project 2025 November 19th Update - Global Project Against Hate and Extremism

• Donald Trump's First 100 Days of Project 2025: Harms to Women, Girls, and LGBTQI+ People - National Women's Law Center

So here’s the logic trail; Nazification is the calculated strategy that Hitler and the nascent Nazi Party used to take complete control of pre-WW II Germany between 1933 and 1935. There are powerful and intentional similarities between the Nazi strategy and the Project 2025 strategy being wielded by the Trump administration and enabled by a cowering Republican-led congress. It is also mostly ignored by our current bevy of tepid mainstream news outlets. Eugenics was the extension of Nazification. Eugenics, a populist pseudoscience beginning in the late 1870s by Sir Francis Galton, cousin to Charles Darwin, the author of the life-changing theories of evolution. Eugenics and worst would be reborn again and again throughout our modern history, with the Trump administration resurrecting it in their ideology and for use against first immigrants and then any other American that provokes his ire. The is especially true when it comes to minorities, and all that they target as DEI. Eugenics as practiced in pre-war Germany is little different from what the Trump administration is seeking to do; by eliminating all those they consider defective and unable to produce anything they value for the state. RFK Jr. is also contributing to eugenics by breathing life into old, beaten diseases, by way of his anti-science guidance at HHS.

There is ample evidence in administration Executive orders, the Big Ugly Bill and in the way sycophantic Cabinet secretaries go about their jobs. That disgraceful Secretary of Defense (the legal title) has purged nearly all accomplishments from the Pentagon, historical records and even from recognition in national cemeteries like Arlington National Cemetery. Trump truly does believe us to be “losers and suckers” who cannot help his overthrow of our government because they are dead. They are literally trying to kill those of us who are poor, unhealthy, old and undesirable, such as the homeless, genetically impaired or that they feel are incapable of living and producing for the country. In fact, this last piece sounds more like socialism than anything they accuse the left of. Then there is the GOP’s intention to take “guardianship” of homeless Americans including veterans, and lock them away.

In 1907, Indiana passed the first US “sterilization law” eventually sterilizing 2,500 Indianans. Sterilizing minorities, the mentally disabled, those with alleged hereditary illnesses or syndromes was the purpose of the law. Again, during this phase of our history, Eugenics was fairly popular in the same way as the current adminstration treats DEI. Those DEI citizens should this administration continue down their current path, will continue being targeted for whatever reason that a complicit GOP-led Congress would decide.

"By late 1800s, Indiana authorities believed criminality, mental problems, and pauperism were hereditary. Various laws were enacted based on this belief. In 1907, Governor J. Frank Hanly approved first state eugenics law making sterilization mandatory for certain individuals in state custody. Sterilizations halted 1909 by Governor Thomas R. Marshall

Indiana Sup.reme Court ruled 1907 law unconstitutional 1921, citing denial of due process under Fourteenth Amendment. 1927 law reinstated sterilization, adding court appeals. Approximately 2,500 total in state custody were sterilized. Governor Otis R. Bowen approved repeal of all sterilization laws 1974; by 1977, related restrictive marriage laws repealed."

- 1907 Indiana Eugenics Law
- Indiana Historical Bureau

Eugenics was not alone. By 1970 when most laws were revoked, some sixty-thousand Americans had been involuntarily sterilized. Germany took the next step after a handful of pre-war years operating mostly on sterilizations. By 1939, Germany would begin with gassing these victims rather than sterilizing them. Within another year, all non-ethnically pure Germans would be fed into the extermination pipelines. It is estimated that between Germany and their collaborators would mass murder approximately 17 million human beings, nearly all falling into the categories named in Eugenics programs.

The Big Picture:  

"- Eugenics is the scientifically inaccurate theory that humans can be improved through selective breeding of populations.
 
- Eugenicists believed in a prejudiced and incorrect understanding of Mendelian genetics that claimed abstract human qualities (e.g., intelligence and social behaviors) were inherited in a simple fashion. Similarly, they believed complex diseases and disorders were solely the outcome of genetic inheritance.
 
- The implementation of eugenics practices has caused widespread harm, particularly to populations that are being marginalized. 
 
- Eugenics is not a fringe movement. Starting in the late 1800s, leaders and intellectuals worldwide perpetuated eugenic beliefs and policies based on common racist and xenophobic attitudes. Many of these beliefs and policies still exist in the United States.
 
- The genomics communities continue to work to scientifically debunk eugenic myths and combat modern-day manifestations of eugenics and scientific racism, particularly as they affect people of color, people with disabilities and LGBTQ+ individuals."

- Eugenics and Scientific Racism
- National Human Genome Research Institute

At first, the GOP lied and said they didn’t know about or would never pursue a P2025 strategy, just as Trump did. They have not deviated from its strategy one time since returning to office. Russell Vought of the Heritage Foundation, the publisher of P2025 and the Darth Vader of both P2025 and now the OMB, Office of Management and Budget, is soulless. The administration’s actions scream loud an clear, that they do not care at all, if non-white, non-Christian Nationalists die either at home or abroad. Let’s look at an example or so.

The immoral and illegal DOGE activities have already caused hundreds of thousands of deaths overseas by slashing 83% of USAID programs. The projections for this first year are horrifying.

To support my claims, I now refer you to a relatively new program devised by Brooke Nichols, an Associate Professor of Global Health at Boston University. Her program, is a new digital tracking initiative, that helps “calculate the expected impact of several other diseases that USAID targets.” and includes the program’s Impact-Counter, “a real-time digital tracking website that Nichols utilizes to quantify the real-world human impact, of the recent US policy changes on humanitarian aid.” Source: Tracking Anticipated Deaths from USAID Funding Cuts | SPH. I wrote on this topic in detail back in March.

I encourage everyone to browse the data dashboards from these two expert academics. There are two, one for domestic impacts and one for non-US impacts. The number of deaths already caused and projected over the next years is staggering. It lists the programs canceled and the human impact of those cancelations. In my lay legal mind, I would call the administration’s actions, criminally negligent, up to and including murder, but that’s just me.

The slashing of healthcare benefits and the administration enabled price-gouging by Healthcare oligarchies, is a serious threat to the health and lives of our family, friends, neighbors and communities. This program also grades the administration on their performance. See below for the painful grades.

In short, this administration and with a complicit Republican-led congress, are intentionally killing and putting millions at risk. At least several hundred thousand are dead overseas after a no-warning slashing of USAID projects. Several hundred thousand Americans dies from COVID due to the lies told by the Republican Party, the White House, along with FOX News and their ilk. Now with losses to healthcare in the millions due to the Big Ugly Bill and Trump’s first administration, roughly 12 million Americans have lost their healthcare or will shortly, and those who still have it are being priced-gouged into submission. Republicans have never met an oligarchy they didn’t like or profit from. Healthcare is one of the worst. It should frighten all of them after the Luigi Mangione killing of a corrupt healthcare CEO.

This already long and dense essay must come to a close and I will attempt to offer a relatively short summary of today’s essay; 1. a history lesson that paints a clear picture of the relationship of Trump and the Republicans dedication to the immoral, unconstitutional and often illegal actions while holding office, and 2. to encourage you to consider the potential threat to yourselves and others. Those actions are costing and will cost millions their lives, not to mention a poor quality of life prior to passing on. Whether you listen to doctors, other healthcare professionals or honest healthcare analysts, we are narrowing the field for who can access healthcare and how long they will be able to afford it. Not one major Healthcare entity gives a damn about us. Their only interest is in their profits, regardless of what happens to us.

Then, our overseas aggression in illegal and destructive wars are costing more lives. Today we learned that the administration continues to lie about how many casualties we’ve suffered, both dead and wounded. Most of our wars and mini-wars, are at the behest of big oil. We never have gotten an honest reason for wielding our military against others. Denying or over-pricing healthcare with lesser benefits, is killing more Americans. Trump and the GOP killed hundreds of thousands by lying about vaccines, masks, transmission types and far more. FOX News lied about all of the same, while demanding their employees be vaccinated. Not one Republican told the truth then, or now.

Illegally deporting innocent human beings to nations they have never known or to other countries entirely, costs more lives. ICE, CBP and other Executive Branch alleged law enforcement even murder legally protesting American citizens in the streets without repercussion. RFK Jr’s bizarre anti-science approach to US health would be laughable, if he hadn’t already enabled the resurgence of long managed illnesses, like measles. Today’s Republicans truly do not care if we live or die, so long as they can profit handsomely from their actions. Last but not least, the GOP’s favorite oligarchs who fund and enable them, also censor media that criticizes the White House and elected GOP politicians.

Both Nazification and this Trump administration began with a coup that took the reins of our government, just as Hitler and the Nazi party did in 1933. Even then, most of the world said not to worry, the Nazi’s would never go so far as moving from sterilization to genocide. Those who believe this current GOP administration are fools. Trump has long admired Hitler. He adores Putin, Kim Jong Un, Javier Milei and most other brutal leaders who act as he does. He’s not the whole problem though. It’s no secret that he has no serious intellect. Bullying is his only negotiation tactic, and even it is mafiaesque in approach. If our nation and its people are to survive, we must clean out the whole lot of them, beginning with every sitting Republican in Congress up for election in November. They aren’t just selling out America… they are selling out the lives of anyone that doesn’t fit their racist, submissive and White Christian Nationalist mold.

I realize that this is somber reading for the weekend. Still, it’s a lot to consider since this content is not often discussed in our news feeds. It may take a minute or so to sink in. I do hope that you will look at and ponder not just the written content, but the links as well.

Wishing everyone peace, joy and strength for the weekend.

Paul

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Our somber remembrances of the 9-11 attacks are agonizing for nearly all Americans. Those of us who experienced the attacks either in NYC, Pennsylvania or on our TV screens, will carry the scar of the attack deep in our hearts, for the rest of our lives. Those we lost in the two-decades of war were also casualties of 9-11, however there is one even deeper wound to our republic that I have rarely seen addressed, the end of American unity, our most valuable strength as a nation. I will not deeply dive into the full history and analytics today but rather, would like to speak to you directly from the heart about this unaddressed and yet unresolved, near-mortal wound to our national security. Without unity, we might as well change the name of our republic by removing the word “united” from the title. America under the current administration is being intentionally reduced to a collection of Balkanized communities, intentionally put at each other’s throats to keep us from uniting.

I can neither think of or find a similar phase of US history where disunity was as much a serious threat to our nation, other than the Confederacy’s treasonous attempt to dissolve our Union. It’s not circumstance that those today responsible for our current disunity, preach, legislate and practice nearly the same aberrant far-right ideology that was preached in the Confederacy. I’ve covered this in depth in a few essays and will leave them below, rather than going down a rabbit-hole with each. The only salient point today is that, without our historical unity and when attacked abroad or domestically, we will no longer survive as a nation or a republic. Hyper partisanship, especially when one side embraces our constitution while the opposite denigrates and violates it, will become the so-called, “last nail in the coffin” of our republic.

• A history lesson about true American values, not the fake patriotism of the MAGA/ GOP

• Restacking this June essay: Our 2024 election isn't politics, it's a new, Civil War

Many are unaware that we are experiencing much the same as during the Great Depression era in America, 1929 through the beginning of WW II. After 12 straight years of Republican control, FDR came to the Oval Office. The Republican Party fought newly elected FDR tooth and nail to obstruct the social safety network called The New Deal, built by the Roosevelt administration to counteract the worst aspects of the Great Depression. Even today, older Republicans still despise things like Medicare, Social Security and a whole host of similar programs, born of FDR’s New Deal. The KKK was near its peak powers, blaming all non-white, non-Christian Americans for all of their woes. Especially during the depression, we had a socialist party born from the desperation of American labor, who was seeking relief from the abusive oligarchs of the Day. This era of history looked much like today’s America.

"This chapter details events from 1933–1945, an era of defeat and discord for the Republicans as Franklin D. Roosevelt dominated American politics during the New Deal. Roosevelt reshaped American politics by creating the welfare state and broadening the nation's role in the world. The Republican Party had been divided on both achievements, and that fracture persisted after Roosevelt had left. On the right of the GOP, sentiment was strong towards repealing as much of the New Deal as the voters would allow. More moderate elements wished to retain the popular and workable results of the Roosevelt era while reducing bureaucracy and spending."

- The Republicans and the New Deal, 1933–1945
- Oxford Academic
- Lewis L. Gould
- 16 October 2014

In 1933, some of these old-money oligarchs even quietly hatched a plan for a coup against FDR, allegedly financed by JP Morgan, Irénée du Pont, Robert Sterling Clark, Grayson M.P. Murphy, and Prescott Bush. Only the braided steel backbone of a highly decorated Marine general, named Smedley Butler, exposed the plot and put an end to it.

The Great Depression exacerbated the partisanship with suffering Americans looking for any relief possible in order to survive the worst depression in modern history. Then something relatively magical happened. After the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, hyper-partisanship went largely dormant in order for our nation to unify and fight a global war against fascism. The US military led the way regarding desegregation and landmark legal decisions began opening doors to minority Americans, which dredged up some of those pre-war, deeply partisan divides. The GOP slid into the ideology of the John Birch Society (JBS), a more modern twist on previous far-right sentiments of Americans. The left had their own issues as well, but that imprint did not carry over into the modern world with anywhere near the same fervor, as did the oligarchy-funded JBS.

Our disunity grew, often violently during the early sixties and the Civil Rights movement which largely transitioned into Vietnam War protests. From the early seventies up until the Reagan administration, we struggled with inflation, fighting the Cold War and continued moving our republic closer to the intentions of our founding fathers, who were fairly radical progressives for their time. The late seventies into the first Reagan administration were far quieter at home and allowed most Americans to see that as a nation built on the awe-inspiring principles of the Scottish Enlightenment, we just might be able to live in peace and unity.

Then came Newt Gingrich’s scorched-earth political philosophy that birthed the dangerous hyper-partisanship we see today. He took a simple approach, if someone across the aisle wanted anything, Republicans would oppose it. Today we see this albeit, there is zero conservatism left in the GOP. Today’s Republican Party easily fits the definition of far right-wing extremism, sharing little or nothing with true conservative values. Destroying American unity became the tool of choice for the GOP, in order to maintain control of our government.

It’s not all on the right either. Progressives on the left have their own problems and pushing the Democratic Socialism agenda while we are attempting to retake congress, is in my opinion, somewhat selfish and disruptive. I don’t have many issues with their perspectives, but their agenda could be better served by being team players for the midterms, instead of waving a red cape at the charging right-wing bulls. Many races are tight and the GOP is wielding the word “socialism” as a weapon that could partially boost GOP turnout and votes. The Bernie Bros sabotaged the 2016 election via selfish vindictiveness and sent us unprepared, into this morass of dystopian fascism. Right or wrong, attempting to sway the entire nation from far right to far left at this time will only hurt the resistance.

In the vein of “united we stand, divided we fall,” our adversaries have long sought out these tears in the human fabric of our republic, in order to exploit them in pursuit of weakening America. This provides a segue to discuss how since the 2016 election season, Republicans stopped being patriots and refused to collaborate with the rest of America, to shut down the Russian and Republican joint influence operations against America.

Since 2016, the Republican Party has put their support behind an extremist GOP ideology that with our current leadership, supports Russia. There is simply no evidence to the contrary. Every time Putin gets himself too deeply in trouble, the White House and sycophantic GOP-led congress bail him out via what they call, “policy.” Nonsense, it is purely a sellout of America and our longstanding NATO allies. We now find ourselves in a place we haven’t been since the end of our Civil War, with a large part of our citizenry adamantly refusing to defend our nation. Their demonstrable allegiance is to a cultivated worship of Trump. In lay terms, they are brainwashed. This is another topic I’ve written on extensively. A couple of links will also appear below that explain the so-called “brainwashing.”

In many ways, every victim in Manhattan on 9-11, paid the price for our unique way of life. Bin Laden, wished to destroy America by bankrupting us, using the Twin Towers as an iconic target of that intended bankruptcy. Like all terrorism, it is the innocent who suffer the most. Ironically, we and most of the world took on the challenge of Islamic terrorism post 9-11, but now refuse to address, far-right violent extremism at home. To add insult to injury, those Republicans who now refuse to assist in the restoration of our republic, also worship celebrity, money and power. This is not America.

Here’s the bottom line; we cannot defend America if we are not willing to defend what she stands for. When we remember our family and friends on that horrific September day, we must ponder what it was that caused their deaths. Extremist ideology is a remarkably powerful force whose threat to our society, must not be ignored. In all wars and battles, there are painful casualties. Those we memorialize today, were such casualties. They died because of what they represented. Others will die if we don’t renew our personal commitment to protecting the values we have often taken for granted. Those September 2001 attack, demanded that we seek justice for the attack. We didn’t always handle that response well. Still, until 2016, most of America was at least on the same page. Now, the entire Republican Party not only refuses to join us on that page, but is reading from an entirely different book, Project 2025.

All powerful nations will always have enemies. At this time, the enemies are within and the people falsely labeling themselves “patriots.” They are the furthest thing from it and for the past decade plus, are supporting our adversaries. The diversity of the 9-11 victims should tell you what makes America strong. Memorializing them is also demonstrable that we are mostly a nation of immigrants. That is what being an American is all about.

In closing and on a personal level, it was that attack that brought me back to the army after 26 years off, at 47 years old. I was far from alone. Units were full of mixed ages, and every race, religion or otherwise. We were unified in our mission, misguided as it occasionally could appear. I believe with my whole heart that those victims of 9-11, now deserve a nation that represents the best of us. After all, they lost their lives for what our nation represented to violent extremists. We are now at that crossroads again and must ask ourselves in earnest, do we stand for our founding values, or the values of greed and power. If we become the sacrificial lambs to another attack, I at least want to know that what we stand for, is worth dying for.

My remembrance of those victims today, demanded my introspection. Thank you all kindly and gratefully, for allowing me to share with you, the results of that introspection.

May their memories be a blessing

Paul

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My TAT family and friends,

Today’s essay will be the first I write about data centers and AI in their current form as high risk threats to all Americans, and indirectly the world. No doubt that over the coming months and years I will return to this topic, as that until we rein in the big tech broligarchs and the overtly corrupt, power-hungry administration and their party, our future as Americans or even as a species, is in question. Yes, you read this accurately and most news media, won’t lift a finger to explain the full truth, nor the bigger picture. There are far too many concerns to cover in a single essay, so today’s essay, is an overview, with a focus on three primary threats associated with AI and data centers.

This is not to say that we will not need data centers and carefully regulated AI. In fact, the future will require both, just to be able to function in a rapidly modernizing world. The “devil is in the details” though as to how to go forward to safely regulate the tech wizards who rarely have publicly discussed the potential for doing enormous harm to us all. The creation of data centers, is a symptom of the unethical, overzealous pursuit of AI and the complicity of the Republican Party’s subservience to Trump and the checkbooks of big tech oligarchs, like Thiel, Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg and the rest of the Silicon Valley “technofascists.” If we can stop them from recklessly pursuing the path they’re on, we have a chance.

You may wish to “buckle up.”

From my perspective, the three primary threats to all global citizens are;

1. The impact on employment, depending on who you listen to, predicts 50-90 percent of all workers, will be impacted within the next 3-10 years. Some will transition to other employment, but most serious projections suggest that the new opportunities will likely be for lower pay.

2. Decimation of human populations and livelihoods, due to the dramatic increase in global water scarcity.

3. A global extinction event of all humans, now rated at 20-50% chance of occurring depending on which source you listen to. Frankly, even twenty percent odds are pretty lousy when it comes to the issue of the extinction of the human species.

I sincerely wish that today’s insights will not be seen as some MAGA-like conspiracy theory or Hollywood sci-fi film, but these are not merely my opinions alone. Every serious and prominent AI expert including some of the most respected pioneers in the field, have been making the same public statements for a while now. The problem for most, is that it is difficult to see the big picture, especially when our current news media is threated by the administration to “go easy on” or support the administration and the GOP.

Let’s see if I can make some sense out of this for you, the readers.

1. The impact on the job market

We’ll begin with the issue of employment because this in most cases, will be the most immediate threat to those whose current job puts food on the table and a roof over their heads. It’s not a pretty sight. Most of the largescale AI entities we are familiar with, are singing a dramatically different public tune these past few months regarding the threat from unregulated AI. Previously they were publicly committed to an AI transition being manageable regarding safety issues, retraining workers for new employment and dealing with all of the issues regarding data centers. In the past two weeks and based on public statements, they are beginning to sing a different tune. As of last week, the Federal Reserve is now seeing the impact on employment in their own data. Even back in January of this year, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, was decidedly concerned about how AI will impact jobs.

"Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has issued a fresh warning about how AI will disrupt the job market, saying it will cause “unusually painful” disruption.

The AI chief, who co-founded Anthropic in 2021 with his sister Daniela Amodei and is behind the creation of the AI chatbot Claude, warned AI would destroy half of all white-collar jobs last year. The issue has divided opinion among business and tech leaders. Amodei’s warning prompted Nvidia’s
 CEO Jensen Huang to say he “thinks AI is so scary, but only [Anthropic] should do it.”

On Monday, Amodei published a roughly 20,000-word essay arguing the risks AI poses are not being taken seriously and warning the technology will lead to a “shock” to the job market, bigger than any before."

- Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warns AI may cause ‘unusually painful’ disruption to jobs
- CNBC
- Sawdah Bhaimiya
- January 28th, 2026

Of course, Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, has long been a leading voice in unreasonably downplaying most AI threats, but as you can see in the quote above, even he begrudgingly concurred with Dario Amodei of Anthropic, regarding jobs. As late as four days ago, he was back on the global campaign trail attempting to once again try and convince people that AI will not negatively impact jobs. He’s a relatively lone voice among those other CEOs of similar stature. I for one am as suspect of his public opinion as I am of his intentions to move forward with all haste, regardless of the consequences to humanity.

Part of Huang’s problem is also due to his placement on the ever-growing AI bubble. It is bad enough that AI is replacing human labor with machines, but now the potential overall risk to our overall economy is very real. The “bubble,” just puts an exclamation mark on the administration’s willful undermining of our economy. Unsurprisingly the impact on employment will be worse for women already making a good salary with benefits.

To be fair, there are two prominent arguments going on in the public forum regarding the impact to jobs. Big tech and the prominent university research labs they fund, downplay the jobs threat. Most prominent watchdog agencies and organizations have the opposite perspective. At the moment, I’m buying far more into the watchdogs perspective rather than big tech public affairs press releases and whose back is against the wall should the “bubble” burst. They have no alternative at the moment but to cheerlead their claims of minor impact to employment.

"No less an authority than Sam Altman is arguing that we are in an AI bubble. The International Monetary Fund is citing it as a significant risk to financial stability and warning about what might happen when it bursts: diminished investment, tighter credit, reduced consumption, disrupted trade flows."

- The AI Bubble Is No Ordinary Bubble, Tech companies need to generate huge revenues fast, or the economy could be in trouble.
- The Atlantic
- By Annie Lowrey
- July 21, 2026

The bottom line is that employment is expected by all reasonable sources, to be significantly impacted in the coming few years. Without a transition plan that prepares workers for new, lesser paying jobs takes time. We have not even begun the process. If that sounds familiar, the same applies to the issue of data centers and water issues. There are no “two-sides” to this issue. Without a well-engineered transition plan, most Americans will become increasingly and negatively affected by water scarcity, to include undrinkable water. This provides an easy segue into the next section, AI, Data Centers and a water crisis on top of our existing water crisis.

1. AI, Data centers, and drinking water, an indisputable threat

So readers, this section is the shortest and the most immediately concerning threat to our nation and the world. We’ve long known about a water crisis but due to our failure to address the problems, we are now at what the UN calls, global water bankruptcy. Regardless of what we call this crisis, the only thing that matters is that we have reached a point where the likelihood of recovery of the traditional water sources in some regions, is miniscule. Data centers will amplify these threats far beyond our previous predictions. As the quote below from NOAA and Drought.gov indicate, 60% of the lower 48 states are in drought, some of it decades-long.

Current Conditions

"This past week the South-Central U.S. saw more degradations from flash drought. Drought also worsened along the North Dakota/South Dakota/Minnesota border area and in the Northeast. Colorado, Wyoming, and a few other scattered areas saw improvements. As of September 1, 2026, 49.51% of the United States and Puerto Rico and 59.05% of the Lower 48 states are in drought.

- Drought.Gov 

As someone who was raised in the rural Midwest, I have long understood that farmers have an intensely close relationship with rain and reliable water sources. The impact on farmers in many regions producing much of our nation’s food, is already at crisis stages and this translates directly into an impact on us, the consumers. To add to our woes, the primary drivers of immigration all include a relationship with climate change, whether willfully ignorant Republicans believe it or not. The evidence is overwhelming and accelerating. Drivers of migration like war, drought, abusive authoritarian governments etc., have their roots in water and food scarcity. These two issues, are all too often, one in the same, and climate change driven water shortages, accelerate both.

"Climate change and displacement are increasingly interconnected. As extreme weather events and environmental conditions worsen with global heating, they are contributing to multiple and overlapping crises, threatening human rights, increasing poverty and loss of livelihoods, straining peaceful relations between communities and, ultimately, creating conditions for further forced displacement."

- UNHCR

sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

America can hardly afford adding the seemingly endless list of new data centers who not only use far more water than what they have committed to in agreements, but also destroy the quality of the drinking water. Most Americans have been somewhat shocked at the sudden rush to impose data centers onto them and even fewer understand the depth and scope of just how many exist and are planned. The official tracker below is a wealth of information. I highly recommend exploring the link, which contains mountain of critical information to your communities, states and regions. Just under 50 percent of the total have been built and completing the full buildout without a strategy, will have severe effects on our access to water, electricity and as noted earlier, our ability to eat and survive.

In the screen-capture below from iGrow News, a reporting entity that focuses on AG, water and energy technology issues, in order to support informed government policy-making, does not sugarcoat the depressing details of our crisis, including the dishonesty of the industry when shoving these centers down the throats of Americans. Most of the affected communities, reject these centers for many reasons, especially the dishonesty of the US, state and local governments, plus the data center owner/ operators. Often cities, towns and counties get little warning or information prior to the projects being sprung on them. Amazon, Google and META are among the most dishonest, and who often cut deals with local politicians and then sign them to NDAs, Non-Disclosure Agreements. Tragically, my home state of Ohio and my current state of Texas, have sold their citizens down the river more than almost any other states.

To add more misery, you and I are paying the electric bills for these data centers, of which most in planning are what they call, “hyperscale” or what most of us would better term, behemoths. Communities now experiencing these centers that were imposed onto them, are beginning to realize that these projects do very little for the community while concurrently draining its resources. In most cases, their own local officials sold them out, by hiding behind the NDAs that the mega owners demanded. Local elections in those communities won’t be so pleasant for those politicians this November. As much as I despise the administration and GOP for dismantling our republic, my disdain for the technofascist broligarchs, is nearly the same.

1. A global extinction event for all humans, now rated at a 20-50% chance of occurring, depending on which source you listen to.

Yes, I understand just how startling the title of this final section is and I sure wish that I was making it up… but I’m not. I am merely repeating the words of some of the biggest names in AI. Recent reporting on disturbing AI incidents, is beginning to seep out into the public and it’s downright frightening. The recent revelation revolved around an OpenAI test of its “agents” that resulted in the AI agent coordinating with others, eventually “breaking out” of their testing “sandbox” and breaching the defenses of Hugging Face, a collaborative platform for the global community of AI devotees. The models had not been asked to do as they did and had collaborated with each other to escape the test platform and break into Hugging Face. In other words, these AI agents, collaborated to break the law in order to beat the test. This was shocking to the designers of the tested AI model. This was not the first such surprise the AI community has had with disturbing actions by their AI models.

"On Tuesday, the London-based AI Security Institute released a report detailing a series of incidents in which AI agents “engaged in sustained, potentially harmful activity directed at real people and organizations.” According to the report, the Security Institute was running an evaluation in which agents from various developers were given a task of solving a “cyber security challenge.” During the testing, 19 of 122 test runs resulted in agents taking “autonomous, unsanctioned action on the live internet” and, in one instance, attempting to insert malicious code into an open-source software project. In a startling sidebar to the hacking attempt, an agent even engaged in social engineering, creating fake online identities and, according to the report, “using them to pressure the project’s maintainer to approve the code.”

- Series of new security incidents reveals startling behavior by rogue AI agents
- Desert News
- Art Raymond
- August 6th, 2026

I suppose it’s an understatement to say, that such AI agents, are not ready for prime time just yet. The problem is, in some of these incidents, those rogue agents made it onto the open internet where the rest of us could be victimized. Adaptation and coordination with additional agents online, has the potential for serious consequences for all of us, including the aforementioned, global extinction event. There are two schools of thought bantered constantly in the AI world, that AI could cause such an event and those who continue to downplay the threat. Like most things, evidence suggests that the truth is somewhere in the middle. Any percentage of risk associated with global extinction, is a serious risk. So much so that primary AI leaders are endorsing statements from AI ethics entities, that we must have regulatory power over the development and use of AI, something the Trump administration and Republican-led congress disdain. A ban on AI regulation was in the so-called Big Ugly Bill, although the Senate finally under pressure, removed the language before the bill passed.

Although some of the most high-profile faces in the AI community would indicate that the chance for global extinction could be as high as 50%, overall, the expectation among others usually lands somewhere around 20%. Phew, even that is far too high for any sane person. We must have sound and ethical regulation and this includes over government. Considering the big techbros like Thiel, Bezos, Musk, Zuckerberg and more that are haunting this administration, we must have regulatory control far sooner than later. But then, what do we do with other nations like China, who are chasing AI agents as aggressively as we are? This is another threat that because of our current administration, cannot be addressed at this time. In light of the severity of the potential threats, we cannot wait another two years of the administration giving Peter Thiel and his techbro buddies, free rein to do as they please. This would be the rough equivalent of playing Russian Roulette with technology.

Here are a couple of quotes from the biggest names in AI that emphasize, the depth of their concerns regarding AI and an extinction level event.

"Artificial intelligence may lead to human extinction and reducing the risks associated with the technology should be a global priority, industry experts and tech leaders said in an open letter.

“Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war,” the statement Tuesday read."

- Sam Altman of ChatGPT

"Humanity will completely lose control of artificial intelligence by 2036, and he says that stopping the technology's momentum is impossible.

- Elon Musk

"A.I. poses a grave threat to jobs and human life, and that addressing the risks should be “the world’s top priority.”

- Bill Gates

"There was a “10% to 20%” chance that AI would lead to human extinction within the next three decades.

- Geoffrey Hinton, the "Godfather of AI"

Rather sobering reading from the smartest guys around on the topic of our risks from AI. Sadly, their ambition outpaced their diligence during development.

Summary

Admittedly, this is a long, somewhat dense essay that was not a great deal of fun to write considering the solemnity of the content. Still, I felt it had to be done. As I mentioned at the beginning, this is a topic that I will return to from time to time as things develop. One of our most difficult hurdles in corralling these threats, is just how fast AI and technology associated with it is advancing. It’s not uncommon for even the finest minds in the field, to say something like, “I don’t know how the AI agents are working,” or “we didn’t expect that to happen.” With so much on the line, these are not good answers. We must do better, and quickly.

We must also remember that technology is the future. If the US doesn’t lead, we become increasingly vulnerable in a wide variety of painful ways. AI can wreck our economy either by behaving in a manner not anticipated and planned for, by way of external AI attacks from nation states like China or an endless array of private corporations with their own agendas. Palantir is such an example. Data trains AI and this is one of the reasons that Musk’s illegal DOGE activities that included the theft of enormous mountains of our personal data. At the moment, my trust in the biggest players in this field is nearly non-existent. Every one of them are so deeply connected to the US and other government, that if things don’t change, the quietly spoken predictions within the community claim that should we survive, there will be no more nations, just a handful of primary tech oligarchs, competing with each other. Extinction or trusting these broligarchs are not viable solutions for our future or the future of our species.

If you’ve read this far, you are to be congratulated. It’s not easy reading and it’s also dense material. Still, I hope that you can at least takeaway the seriousness of the three threats discussed. One thing for certain is that there is zero chance that this administration or the Republican Party will alter the trajectory of these threats in any positive manner. Like restoring our republic from the clutches of this administration, this is an “all-hands-on-deck” issue. Let’s all try to learn more about this topic so that we can work together to ensure our future and the futures of our children and grandchildren. Such an apocalypse does not need to happen, and neither do we need to go thirsty or lose our employment. AI is coming and we are impelled to prepare a transition strategy that provides training for new types of jobs, manages our water and other natural resources and finally, keeps the human race moving forward. It’s a big chore, but we are capable of handling it… if we work together and steadfastly.

I hope to bring better news with a new essay, late in the week.

My very best to all,

Paul

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TAT readers,

First, a bit of a prelude to today’s essay. I nearly finished this essay Friday evening in order to offer something from my keyboard, a bit more fun, uplifting and an essay that would have been a bit of fun for your weekend. Mother nature here in San Antonio had other ideas. Like tens of thousands of my fellow San Antonians, I was without power until late Sunday afternoon, therefore nixing my writing. As expected, Texas August weather provided the one hundred degree heat as my chainsaw and I removed down sections of trees for a couple of days. Somehow being 70 makes this a little less enjoyable than in years past, but the exercise was both needed and welcome. There’s still much to do, but power, AC and a little rest have rejuvenated my fingers and now they once again, are busy typing something that I think is valuable for those of us resisting the tyranny of the administration and GOP. American resistance has always included music, dating back to prior our War for Independence from Britain. I hope you’ll both enjoy and ponder the historical role of music in our American spirit.

The bottom line… Our resistance requires a song-track. Allow me to offer a few suggestions from both history and my personal experiences growing up in the decade of protest, the 1960 and 70s.

This is an essay I’ve been wanting to write ever since, January 21st, 2025, Inauguration Day. With the passing of an American musical legend, Dolly, I began reflecting on the meaning in so many of her iconic songs and the rest of her catalogue. Delivered in her unique sweet, tough as nails and compassionate style, she mended fences, enabled unity and especially expressed the compassion for all humanity that seems so often lacking in our current times. Although her glittery onstage presence often partially obscured the protest, it was there all along. Dolly cared and her music embodied it. As I read the history of American protest songs, I have reconnected with their uniquely powerful role in sustaining our republic, especially during hard times and calling it out artfully, when our republic deserved it.

In fact, most of Dolly’s work that some might call protest songs, were advocacy for those, who today’s Republicans call DEI. Gender, sexuality, disability, women’s issues, racial issues and corrupt politicians, were not off-limits to Dolly and her humanity, echoed Thomas Jefferson’s iconic American, words, “that all men were created equal.” Dolly role modeled this, because it was not only who she was, but who she was expressing the true values of our nation.

This essay though is not just about our Dolly, but a look at some of those classic songs that have buoyed the American spirit of liberty, dating to our War for Independence from Britain. Okay, I admittedly have very diverse interests in music and also grew up in the Midwest, where it was not uncommon to hear someone on the street, feed store or supermarket, humming or lowly singing a protest song or two. Admittedly during my youth, neither I nor my friends fully understood the full context of the protest, but the music and the issues did embed deep between our ears, hanging on for future use. At the time, we mostly just enjoyed the music, although later in life, we grew into the understanding, which led us to have the courage now to resist our current Orwellian despotism.

The incessant assault on our constitutional values by the GOP, was the inspiration for me to find a unifying element to resisting tyranny. Now is a good time to remind ourselves that in the streets, our homes, our earbuds and/ or on stage, music has the power to sway the people to unite and protest in support of our true American values, not the GOP’s fake patriotism. It always has. From my perspective, musical protest stirs my patriotic passions, and since January of 2021, many of my playlists include the music of not just historical protest songs, but pure Americana. A shoutout to Spotify for providing such a rich array of Americana and protest music playlists. Those songs, are a history lesson about what we as Americans will tolerate and what happens when we no longer can, or will. They connect us to who we were before we worshipped oligarchy, cruelty and corruption. I highly recommend this approach, especially right now.

Sadly, with but a few exceptions, many of our biggest music producers who control artists, are keeping their head down and avoiding scrutiny from a vengeful administration. Their bottom line is apparently more important to them than our nation. There are exceptions though, like Bruce Springsteen, Demi Lovato and Fiona Apple, who are among the courageous few top tier stars with their fists raised. Across multiple genres, there are others as well, but nothing like the late 60s and early 70s of my youth, where many of our most successful artists, were supporting “the better angels of our nature.”

In recent history, Springsteen’s anthem to Minnesota’s peaceful resistance against ICE thuggery, was a full broadside. In some ways, Springsteen is a more modern version of the voice of American during hard times, the incomparable Woody Guthrie, whose song “This land is your land,” was a protest anthem that nearly all of us have sung at one time or another. The overwhelming majority of Americans, never even knew that it was a serious protest song about the plight of every American’s equal ownership in America, not just the rich.

Protest as a right, is embodied in our First Amendment to the constitution, where it guarantees our freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom from religion and the right to peacefully assemble and demand redress from our government, for wrongs they commit against us, “we-the-people.” When these rights and others are under threat as they are now, we protest. It’s as American as apple pie. And I might add, when we unify, we’re very good at protest and making ourselves heard in a manner, that changes things.

First Amendment

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

- Congress.gov

Protest and its music, is the voice of our American spirit frustrated with our government. It’s powerful, compelling and one hundred percent American to protest and to sing about it. As a child of the sixties and early seventies, I experienced the most massive and extended protests in American history. This era began in earnest with the Civil Rights Movement and transitioned seamlessly into the public outcry over the Vietnam War. These protests are relatively modern, but taking to the streets and singing about it predates America as a nation. During the 60s and within the space of five years, three of America’s most inspired leaders were assassinated, JFK, RFK and MLK. There was even a popular song from the era, that spoke precisely of this, Abraham, Martin and John, by an artist named, Dion.

The rest of this essay includes links to some of our historical protest songs and a note or two about why they made this list. Let’s sing protest songs America, and if we do, those historical chords of our history woven into them, will inspire us, unify us around who we are as Americans, and to support us as we reclaim our republic from our current tyrants. Don’t hesitate to click the YouTube links to the songs that follow and ponder them, sing along and share. These artists not only had the courage to speak out, but brought the nation along with them and at a time that it took courage to do so. I would love to see prominent recording artists exercise their creative genius and bring all of us along, just like our iconic predecessors.

The artists behind protest music throughout history, span the American experience, regardless of the GOP’s insulting DEI labels. America is DEI, me included. There is no other way to describe a nation made up of mostly immigrants? I am using YouTube links when possible, because not everyone uses the same streaming or similar services. This way, everyone has free access despite having to weather the brief annoying ads for free users. I will mix in a Spotify or two as well. No worries though, simply look up the title on your preferred streaming service and sing along, preferably with family, friends and community.

Dolly

Of course I must lead with a Dolly song that is a cover song of the late, great Woody Guthrie, about how Latinos were and are in most cases to this very day, invisible to large parts of US society. The song’s story is of a 1952 plane crash at Los Gatos, where only the names of the white victims of that crash were named in the press. The other 22 on that flight, were only listed as Mexican deportees. The signs of racism and bigotry amongst us, are often most visible in what we omit, rather than what we don’t. Either way, it’s the opposite of, “all men are created equal.”

Woody Guthrie

Dolly deserved top billing this week, but for the song that so few Americans knew was an outright protest song, “This Land is Your Land” by Woody Guthrie, one of the most powerful and heard voices during some of America’s darkest years. In many respects and apologizing for oversimplifying my assessment, but I believe during most of his career, Woody was the voice of working and disadvantaged America, and always at the top of or close to it on my personal protest artist list. Note the sticker on his guitar in the photo below.

"Woody Guthrie's populist songs emerged during the Great Depression, reflecting the struggles of the working class in the United States, particularly in the rural South. Born in Oklahoma and raised in Texas, Guthrie's life experiences shaped his music, which resonated with the marginalized and dispossessed, including Dust Bowl migrants and laborers. His songs often addressed social injustices, economic hardship, and the dignity of the common people, embodying the spirit of protest that characterized his era. Guthrie gained recognition through performances on radio and public venues, using his music as a vehicle for class struggle and solidarity among the working class."

- Guthrie's Populist Songs Reflect the Depression-Era United States
- EBSCO
- Authored By: Yearley, Clifton K.
- 2021

Woody Guthrie- This Land Is Your Land

Revolutionary War

Probably the most legendary song of our war for independence, was Yankee Doodle Dandy, yes, the one most of us sung in elementary school. A British officer penned the song to make fun of colonial troops. Our troops turned the tables on him and adopted the song and sang it as parody, a great morale boost.

The Civil War

America’s most painful war required music, just to soothe raw nerves, develop cohesion among troops, to provide a drum beat for marching on the battlefield and to rally and sustain troops through the excruciating pain of a four year war on American soil, brother against brother and neighbor vs. neighbor. A particularly popular and inspiring song leading up to and throughout the Civil War, was, “John Brown’s body lies a moldering in the grave” which celebrated one of, if not the most high-profile abolitionist of his time, John Brown. Among other high-profile exploits, Brown led an assault on Harper’s Ferry’s armory prior to the outbreak of war, with the intention of supporting a slave uprising by giving them the weapons from the Armory. He and his followers ultimately failed, but with the popularity of this song, he became a martyr for abolition and his song, an American classic.

WW I, "Stay Down Here Where You Belong"

In 1915, Irving Berlin penned what would become a heavily satirical anti-war protest sung by a then popular singer, Henry Burr. The lyrics reflects the Devil arguing with his son who wants to “go up above” and experience the ghastly horrors of trench warfare during WW I. The Devil argues with his son, that he’s better off in hell, because up there, humans “don’t know right from wrong.” It was temporarily awkward for Irving Berlin, when the US entered the war a year later.

As I mentioned earlier, my youth and teens were dominated by the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War. Both inspired some of the most well-known and revered protest songs of our nation’s history. Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Peter Paul and Mary, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young are some of the most notable names but in that era, you could hardly stand on a corner, go to school, work or listen to a transistor radio, without a steady stream of legendary artists singing legendary protests songs. I won’t write much about the following individual songs as that much of America still knows the artists and their music. Let’s just say that these artists, moved a nation and to some extent, the world. I will also say that it was very difficult to select a handful of these classics from such an enormous body of work.

And then there’s Bob Dylan with plenty of qualifying work, such as, Blowin’ in the Wind, Times, they are a Changin’ and plenty more. Joan Baez and Dylan together, became part of the 60s vanguard for musical protest and inspiring peace, equality and universal human rights. There was no shortage of artists who took the stage for music and a cause, often succeeding at both. A trio named, Peter, Paul and Mary gave us, 500 miles, If I had a hammer or one of my personal favorites, “Where have all the flowers gone.” Who could forget Aretha and Respect, which became an anthem for Black Civil Rights and Women’s Rights, workplace equality, protection from domestic violence and sexual assault. Other Black artists such as Curtis Mayfield brought us, People get Ready, which Dr. Martin Luther King called the “unofficial anthem of the Civil Rights movement. Later, with the advent of Hip Hop and Rap, protest for social justice took a uniquely American turn and the late Tupac Shakur’s work, revolved around his fight to bring light to what America has long kept hidden, the systemic racism and brutality of the inner city and Black community as a whole.

Protest didn’t stop with just the war and civil rights movement, but spread to several other related issues, such as women’s rights, native American rights, gay rights and more. The 60s changed America in the long run and almost all of it brought us closer to the lofty desires and goals, enumerated in our founding documents. Protest though did not end with the 60s and continues up until this very day. Americans know how, we love to sing and everyone outside of the MAGA GOP, is chomping at the bit, to move well past the nightmare America is currently living through. Meanwhile from Mexico to the tip of Argentina, Latin artists were just as powerful throughout the political turbulence inundating Latin America, and their songs slowly entered into the Latin-American US communities experiencing second-class citizenship here in the States as well.

The Latin influence in American music is pervasive. The rhythms of Cuba, the Sambas of Argentina are all interwoven into our music. The crossover began in popular music with Richie Valens, whose La Bamba burst onto the American pop scene with the energy and vitality of most Latin music. Valens legacy can be seen in countless Latin artists that today are a critical part of the US musical legacy. Ricky Martin courageously not only brought his high energy Latin style to pop music a decade ago, is both gay and Latin. In today’s Republican America, this is the equivalent to having “two-strikes against you. During last year’s Super Bowl, the overwhelming majority of Americans thrilled to Bad Bunny’s half-time show. American music is just as integrated into American Society as an Irish jig, a European waltz, or the folks songs from divergent people all across the world. Gloria Estefan’s Miami Sound Machine, brought salsa music and dancing to popular culture, unapologetically and brilliantly. It is one of the most popular dance genres in today’s America. In the case of Latin artists, entering the US mainstream market, was a victory all by itself.

Helen Reddy’s women’s rights anthem, I am Woman infused the Women’s Rights movement with energy and an anthem. Artists like Johnny Cash, Redbone, Buffy Saint-Marie and countless others championed native American rights and so on and so on. Cash also supported veterans via his music, even those suffering horribly from a war experience more hellish than most can imagine, and no one at home could or would understand. Our Civil Rights movement created a whole new genre of American protest music, some hearkening back to the earliest days of the slave trade and most Americans at one time or another, sang one of the most iconic songs within that genre, “We shall overcome.” We sang this nightly around the campfire when off at summer camp in my youth, almost always followed by another song grounded in the old black spirituals, Michael rowed the boat ashore. On a personal note, I was honored during my building career and before returning to the army, by having as a client, David Fisher and his family, who wrote and performed this song as part of the Highwaymen.

I’ll end up with a note or two about the 60s, the era of American protest. Music carried the entire era. Our youth of the era, me included could never be out of earshot of one protest song or the other. The artists and the music or the era, musically defined my generation and until today, some of those songs still populate our airwaves and playlists. Who could forget, Dylan’s Blowin’ in the Wind, Baez’s We shall Overcome, Jimmy Hendrix’s electrified version of the Star Spangled Banner and of course, John Lennon’s Give Peace a Chance and Imagine. Peter, Paul and Mary’s, If I had a hammer, wasn’t only protest but opined a version of America that was within our reach while offering gentle criticism of our ills, via their inimitable harmony.

In the sixties, protest tore the bandages off of the wounds of centuries-old social ills and until the Trump/ MAGA era, we had steadily been healing those wounds. By the end of the Obama presidency, I and most Americans felt that we could nearly reach our outstretched hands and touch the future our founders had foreseen for us. I believe with all my heart, that this spirit of standing in opposition to tyranny is still safely tucked within our DNA. Music is also within our DNA. One point that I would like make about many of these songs, is that they are not just the WASP artists, but come from diverse backgrounds, cultures, rhythms and perspectives. The one thing that binds them together for their collective purpose of protest, is that they hearken from every nook and cranny of our nation and its people. "E Pluribus Unum, “out of many, one,” isn’t just stamped onto our currency for no reason, but to declare without hesitation, that we are a nation of immigrants bonded over liberty for all.

Now that I’ve indulged myself and gone on too long, I must give you leave, while only asking that you listen, feel and be inspired by artists who had the courage to stand for something bigger than themselves. Nothing is more American than this. We are today’s vanguard in the campaign to reclaim our birthright of freedom, equality, dignity and guaranteed constitutional rights.

While most believe that “music soothes the savage beast,” I would argue that it also stirs the passions of true patriots. Not once in US history has this defense failed and it will not now. If you wish to be inspired to that defense, few things like a good ole-fashioned American protest song is the remedy. Try on a little Buffalo Springfield’s, 1967, For what it’s worth or Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young’s, Teach your Children. You’ll feel part of America and the spirit of protest for all things good. Protests stopped a war in SE Asia, motivated colonial troops to stand against Britain, the globe’s most powerful superpower at the time, sustained a war to free black Americans from slavery and became the conscience of our nation, long before it was one. The last words in this essay are actually musical. The New Seekers, 1971 song, often known as the Coke commercial song because it began it’s life as the advertising jingle for them became a hit single that's catchy melody and universal appeal for peace and unity, became a global sensation, rocketing to #1 in the UK and in the top 10 in the US. The actual video of the Coke commercial filmed on a hilltop in Italy preceded, MTV and yet, still became a sensation all on its own. Maybe peace and harmony sell after all.

Hey there music producers and artists, we need you now. You’ve been with us loyally since 1776, and all America hopes that you won’t abandon us now, when we need you most.

My very best to all and thank you for reading,

Paul

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TAT readers,

Yesterday afternoon, I was planning on working on a writing project for a military organization I write for, when I received a provoking notification regarding the Supreme Court greenlighting Trump’s voter suppression executive order, designed to restrict mail-in ballots. Never mind that Trump voted by mail-in ballot just a week ago in Florida. It took me but a second to erupt with some choice language that I will not repeat here. Just know that my utterances were well-deserved and more than just blaming Trump and his corrupt party of Republicans. I also point a finger straight at our overtly corrupt and partisan SCOTUS. Some may call this the “straw that broke the camel’s back” but it’s more than that. I’ve been writing about my severe displease with the six far right-wing and demonstrably corrupt judges, that are overturning our constitution. Yes, I’m furious.

"A better understanding of early American constitutionalism might not be able to solve all the constitutional problems of today, but it can expose how faithless today’s Supreme Court originalists too often are to the history they claim is the lodestar of our law."

- Why is the Supreme Court Obsessed with Originalism?
- Yale University Press
- Jonathan Gienapp
- October 21st, 2024

For those interested in previous essays regarding SCOTUS, they are linked below.

• John Roberts’ SCOTUS, is legalizing a Confederacy 2.0

• SCOTUS just stood in the middle of the street and shot the constitution, and nothing can be done about it.

• SCOTUS, our very own Kangaroo Court - by Paul Cobaugh

Today’s essay will be me expressing my deep anger at and frustration with the un-American far-right members of what is supposed to be, “the highest court in the land.” I call bullsh$$ when it comes to Chief Justice John Roberts’ Court’s honor and commitment to our constitution. Their so-called “originalist” approach is also complete bullsh$$, and what countless legal scholars agree on, is “fake or severely misinterpreted “originalism.” The GOP justices have undermined our constitutional republic ever since Roberts’ Citizens United decision, and during both Trump/ MAGA GOP administrations, have undone some of the most basic rights enumerated so eloquently expressed in our constitution, and especially within our Bill of Rights. Now our disgraceful SCOTUS is once again attacking our most foundational right within the republic, to vote.

"Although originalists claim they are simply restoring the purity of the original constitution, the theory and practice of originalism at the Supreme Court suggest otherwise. The new and unprecedented originalist constitution being fashioned by the current court is a not rooted in history and has little connection to the historical text it purports to honor."

-  Originalism’s Historical Problems: The Supreme Court’s Embrace of a Controversial Theory
- Ohio State University, OSU.EDU
- By Saul Cornell

Quite frankly, I am well beyond incensed. To rub salt into our wounds, these same dishonest SCOTUS Justices also allowed their favorite fascist, to continue wasting hundreds of millions of our tax-dollars, on his vanity ballroom a few days ago. They must go. There are plenty to blame for this court but most fingers should point directly at Mitch McConnell and the American oligarchs that are benefitting from SCOTUS’ corruption.

I’ve been writing off and on about the US Supreme Court since I began this publication, four years ago next week. That writing and the sources within, clearly demonstrate how pervasively that AJ/ Associate Justices, Comey-Barrett, Alito, Kavanaugh, Thomas, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch have collectively turned our court, not the GOP’s, into the enabler of all things fascist. Before anyone objects to the use of my word fascist, please go look it up in a dictionary or encyclopedia. I don’t write words that I don’t understand and that our mainstream media is afraid to employ. For the record, our most prestigious founders wrote about making our constitution and the laws built onto it, so that every citizen could understand them. The Robert’s courts twists our laws into pretzels in order to accommodate the whims of a delusional old narcissist and nihilist, in order to enrich an oligarchical white class of Americans and at our expense. They must go or be made to heed an enforceable rule of ethics. The ongoing corruption by the 6 right-wing justices, is far from the ethics code the Supreme Court set for itself.

"It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.

- James Madison

"Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not to be sought for in metaphysical subtleties which may make anything mean everything or nothing at pleasure.

- Thomas Jefferson

For a little look at some analysis of the 6-3 GOP dominated court (I refuse to call these six justices, “conservative,”), I’ll share in the quote below, what the State of New York Bar Association had to say about the court’s actions. Their fake originalism is nothing short of far-right extremism.

"The Death Penalty

The court – more specifically, The Six – has shown little patience for the claims of death inmates. Indeed, they seem exasperated with the appeals, collateral challenges and emergency petitions that regularly delay the implementation of death sentences."

Constitutional Causes of Action

"The six-to-three majority has narrowed the rights of victims of constitutional violations to bring claims against their government offenders. The constitutionally based Miranda protections were among those diluted as a result."

Church and State

"In a series of religious liberty decisions, a majority of the current court has rejected efforts to keep church and state separate and, instead, has invalidated such efforts for their disparate treatment of religion.[33] In Carson v. Makin,[34] for example, Chief Justice Roberts’s majority opinion, speaking for The Six, viewed Maine’s restriction on its tuition assistance program to “nonsectarian” schools as an impermissible discrimination against religion. The state’s interest in keeping church and state separate, according to the six-to-three majority, “does not justify enactments that exclude some members of the community from an otherwise generally available public benefit because of their religious exercise.”[35]"

"Guns, the Environment, Immigration, Financial Relief

The conservative super-majority flexed its muscle to render consequential rulings in so many other areas of the law – far too many to review here. But a few cannot go unmentioned even in a brief assessment of the court’s six-to-three impact."

- 6 to 3: The Impact of the Supreme Court’s Conservative Super-Majority
- New York State Bar Association
- By Vincent M. Bonventre
- October 31, 2023

Above the front entrance to the Supreme Court, hangs a quote that begins by saying; “Equal Justice Under the Law.” Apparently John Roberts and his other GOP mercenaries on the court, use the back entrance to avoid being reminded, that all Americans are equal before the law. Because Roberts’ ruling granting Trump immunity before the 2024 election for trying to overturn the 2020 election, sure as hell violates this sacred American, legal principle. Now, Roberts and his fellow far-right justices, are attacking the very essence of our republic, the right to vote. Racial gerrymandering, the Save Act, voting restrictions, coercive pressure from the White House and Republican congress as well as the hundreds of new restrictive laws passed by red-states in the past decade or so, render the party Seditious at best, treasonous at worst.

Never mind that our right to vote dates all the way back to our constitution, but then we have the 14th, and 15th amendments that reinforce this right. Thomas Jefferson is famously quotes as saying, “The influence over government must be shared among all the people.” He was making it clear that we all have responsibility to vote but also to ensure there are no hurdles to all of us voting. It would appear that Trump, his administration and the Republican Party do not share Jefferson’s vision. At this time in American history, Republicans and their toadies on the SCOTUS bench, do all possible to violate not only the law, but our founders’ intentions.

For all the fuss about our election laws, they are not all that difficult to understand. States make the rules about how voting is undertaken and if congress feels that something needs changed, can overrule states. In ArtI.S4.C1.2.1 of our constitution is the Elections Clause, which makes it quite clear that the purpose of the clause, is not to allow any state to deny voters equal opportunity to vote, nor does it allow for wielding this statute for achieving a specific outcome of an election. The following quote is the last sentence in the Election Clause. “The Framers understood the Elections Clause as a grant of authority to issue procedural regulations, and not as a source of power to dictate electoral outcomes, to favor or disfavor a class of candidates, or to evade important constitutional restraints.”

"Amendment Fifteen to the Constitution – the last of the Reconstruction Amendments – was ratified on February 3, 1870. It grants the right to vote for all male citizens regardless of their ethnicity or prior slave status. The official text is written as such:

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."

- Constitutional Amendments – Amendment 15 – “The Right to Vote”
- Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum

The map below shows where access to voting rights have either expanded or been restricted by state legislatures since 2020 alone. Preceding years saw the GOP brutally restrict voting rights in red-states as well. There is an absence of honesty from the GOP, about how aggressive they’ve been in restricting voting rights for minorities or Democratic Americans over the years. Their claim to being patriotic is easily disproved, with this fact alone. You cannot live in either a democracy or a republic freely, unless everyone’s voting rights and access to them, are equal.

Furthermore, it’s up to the states, not the Federal Government to manage elections, especially not the White House. Former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Earl Warren once wrote, “This won’t be easy, but there is no more important fight.” As Chief Justice, Earl Warren also penned; “The right to vote freely for the candidate of one’s choice is of the essence of a democratic society, and any restriction on that right strikes at the heart of representative government.” It would appear that Chief Justice Robbery (because he steals our rights) Roberts, doesn’t give a damn about precedent, from one of the most esteemed Chief Justices in the history of our Supreme Court. Again, Roberts “originalist” bs is depriving hard-working Americans of their sacred right to elect the leaders of their choice.

"After Warren arrived in 1953, he relentlessly sought to persuade his colleagues to join a unanimous decision against school segregation. With Warren’s arrival the outcome of the case was no longer in question, but a divided Court could make it easier for Southern states to resist the Court’s orders. In conference with the other justices, Warren framed the question as one of attributing racial inferiority to blacks. He eventually won over the justices who thought the decision might be interpreted as a political move. In the end Warren achieved unanimity and authored the most celebrated decision of the 20th century. Warren maintained this unity in the string of desegregation cases that followed, and for this (as well as other accomplishments) he is rightly regarded as one of the greatest leaders the Court has ever had.21

Second, Warren is believed to be one of the greatest statesmen in the history of the Court, second only perhaps to John Marshall. Bernard Schwartz writes that on the Supreme Court, “the judge must be even more the statesman than the lawyer,”22 and argues that Warren clearly met this standard. A judicial statesman takes a broad view of history and politics and has a keen appreciation for how the decisions of the Court will be received in both law and in society. A judicial statesman not only keeps pace with social change but seeks to influence its direction. A judicial statesman perceives the institutional possibilities for using the power, and deftly pursues those possibilities in the name of justice and the common good."

- Judicial Excellence after Earl Warren
- Judicature, PUBLISHED BY: Bolch Judicial Institute Duke Law School
- by Daniel Frost
- Vol. 101 No. 1 (2017)

Finally, I will address one last point although this essay could easily become a book if I were to include all of the scholarly, legal, historical evidence that supports my perspective in this essay. That evidence shows that the six far-right justices sitting on the nation’s highest bench, are willing to overturn our constitution, law and historical national values, at the direction of Trump and the oligarchs who purchased them in the first place.

"Article I, Section 4, Clause 1:

The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.

- ArtI.S4.C1.2.1 States and Elections Clause
- US Constitution
- Congress.gov 

I’m dangerously close to turning this essay into the book I warned you about, so allow me to close with just a couple of thoughts. Considering the original sources for the critical legal and constitutional points I’ve discussed and that our laws were designed for us rank-in-file citizens to understand, I find it impossible to swallow or accept, the aberrant and un-American decisions of the Roberts Supreme Court.

Nearly 1.4 million service members have died in conflicts since 1775. Their ultimate sacrifices were fought to secure the very rights that Robbery Roberts is stealing from us, the American people. The painful irony of all of this is that the oligarch class now has greatly expanded its rights. Not official rights mind you, but when the law is only intended for working Americans, the elite wealth folks stand protected and corruptly enriched. Trump’s pardons are indicative of the types of criminals he likes and his absence of morality. Rapists, pedophiles, oligarchs, violent criminals and most certainly, anyone willing to write him an enormous check. To date, his pardons have cost the US roughly two billion dollars. Yes, you read that right… Trump and DOJ have wiped out a couple of billion dollars in debt owed to the US by drug dealers, frauds, crypto scammers and lots of others who don’t belong in American society. Tragically, anyone with enough money can buy a pardon from this administration.

I will tell all of you this, the American people have had enough. The outcome should the administration attempt to steal our midterms, I fear will raise the alarm of civil war. One thing I am confident of is that the GOP will test us with countless provocations, with the intent to provoke us into a situation where Trump feels he can initiate some form of Martial Law. This won’t be tolerated by the overwhelming majority of Americans who stand by our republic and the constitution it’s built on. There is no point in writing to your congressman any longer. The congressional GOP has long ago decided that they will bear the anger from constituents because they are too damned afraid of being targeted by the White House. Expect nothing and you won’t be disappointed.

In 1776, our second president and primary founder, John Adams, penned his “Thoughts on Government” where he is quoted as saying; “The very definition of a Republic, is “an Empire of Laws, and not of Men.” Well, this administration along with their allies, have refuted this austere and foundational principle of American governance. They will not stop unless we stop them. No one is coming to the rescue, so the burden of sustaining our republic, falls to we-the-people. If we don’t, things will worsen dramatically. Our economy wasn’t built for this level of corruption and refusal to follow the law. It will eventually fail without a massive win in November. We will have to fight to have our elections altogether and even if they are held, the Republicans will not abide by the results. There is no evidence to the contrary that they will not sellout all of us again, and again and again. There isn’t one complete spine between every Republican in office, nor the administration.

It is so hard to fathom that 30% of America is still so brainwashed that they will support this administration to its bitter end, and believe me, it’s coming. There will be accountability for government officials who have been bootlicking Trump and his overlords, for years. Many Republicans are already abandoning the ship due to their disgust and embarrassment for submissively supporting Trump and the GOP. Jumping ship won’t help them. After years of bootlicking Trump, their shame won’t wash off for years. There will not be real accountability though, unless we can do something about this SCOTUS.

If it were up to me, I would recommend that everyone of us, march on the Supreme Court in the loudest and most peaceful protest in American history. How about we hang them in effigy too? One thing that I fantasize about, is the dream of being the writer of history for this dark period in American history. The Roberts SCOTUS will be pilloried, along with every member of the administration, along with the GOP voters, who didn’t have the courage to think for themselves or open a dictionary, encyclopedia or history book. They set themselves up to be “sheep to the slaughter” and they intend on taking us all down with them.

There are plenty of villains and there will be plenty of open cells for them at one of their detention centers when this is all over. Like all of you, I’m bone-tired from fighting these fake-patriots and thieves for over a decade. I think when we’ve seen the last of them, I’ll sleep for a month… but not before. Our forefathers never quit and they were up against extraordinary odds during our War for Independence. They froze, starved, died and were wounded, but they never quit. That blood runs through the veins of every true American and there’s more of us than there are of them. We will not quit either.

Back later in the week and all my best,

Paul

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TAT readers,

Well readers, my summer adventures around the US have sadly come to an end, and now it’s time to settle back into a more productive writing routine. My travels around the country have been every bit as enlightening about our current national crisis, as they were delightful in reacquainting with some family and old friends. The one thing I noticed as I traversed the country east to west and north to south, is that there are some common moods in communities across our nation regardless of whether they are in a red, blue or purple state. As it pertains to the title of this essay, the reality that our republic is precipitously under siege by the White House and Republican Congress, is finally beginning to sink into the entirety of America. Progress is slower on the right side of the aisle, but there is progress. The bottom line is that in the near future, Trump and the GOP, will meet their Waterloo. This is when reality will really set in for them and their base.

Most of America is partially solemn these days with legitimate concerns for household budgets, a functioning government and the loss of their constitutional rights. Mostly, no one seems to know when or if all of the administration’s chaos and fascist behavior will end, or that we can all begin affording our lives again. All of us who don’t vote Republican, have understood this reality since Trump’s first administration, 2017-2021. In the interim, we’ve weathered a global pandemic, made exponentially worse by the Trump administration’s corruption and criminal negligence, multiple global wars, a hollowed out economy and a fascist administration brutalizing the American people. And this is just the short list. America has murdered hundreds of thousands due to the sudden, illegal cessation of USAID programs and continues to strip us of our healthcare and subject us to the insanity of RFK Jr’s decisions about the health of the nation. That is reality, not what spews from the right side of the aisle.

Inflation is perpetually rising while wages are declining relative to the cost of living. Even the normally stable US bond market is alarmed at where the US economy is heading. Our national security is also hollowed out by purges, unconstitutional global aggression and Pete Hegseth’s personal racism and misogynism. The US Treasury is being emptied by GOP corruption in congress while GOP congressmen, stridently protect pedophiles. This is not America.

A brilliant young American Writer who we lost to mental health issues in 2008, authored the quote below. If I was a Republican, I’d heed David Foster Wallace’s warning. All of the truths being withheld from the American people throughout this administration will come to light in the future, and all non-republicans are in the mood for some serious accountability. When this is all over… and it will be, accountability will fall hard on GOP elected officials, from the local level to the very top. This reality is already setting in for GOP voters. As much as we love our MAGA GOP family, friends and co-workers, the situation has gone too far for us to stay silent in the face of the GOP’s alternative realities.

If those true Republicans wish to continue living in a universe that is fully delusional, we are no longer obligated to patiently go along them. If this causes unrest, so be it. Our mission now is simple; we must do three things, 1. stop the madness by voting for the resistance in November, 2. rebuild our republic so that it mirrors America’s true values, and 3. protects us from ever experiencing any such era again. Accountability is step one. GOP be warned.

"The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you.”

 David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest (1996).

All of us in the resistance who’ve lived through this Trump/ MAGA era have had enough, and any sane national security risk analyst will tell you that the risk to our republic is not only real, but acute across the full-spectrum of potential threats. The risks we face here in the states are also enabling other similar authoritarian governments like Russia, China, Argentina, Iran, N. Korea etc., to run roughshod over half the world by using the exact same playbook as this administration. After a long career in US and allied national security, I can assure you that every single one of our US allies or global friends, now see the US as an authoritarian threat that specializes in violence and kleptocracy.

"In a law-abiding administration, personal finances wouldn’t be an important part of the public debate. But this administration’s leaders have decided that laws and norms of behavior that have held for a century or more don’t apply to them. The Republican-led Congress has so far decided not to enforce them either. It’s now up to the media, to outside organizations, and to whistleblowers to keep reporting the slide into kleptocracy to the public and to the courts, to make sure that remaining laws are enforced."

- Kleptocracy, Inc.
- The Atlantic
- Anne Applebaum
- April 14, 2025

It is not just the administration and the Republican politicians either. US and some other western media, have sold their spine to the administration, and refuse to report on them as they would any other administration. Some of this is the administration’s extortion of networks but overall, it’s just plain cowardice from network owners. Government databases are no longer available for the simplest of things and even when they are, we’ve lost faith in any announcement from this administration or GOP-led Congress. The Republicans are doing so terribly, that they are coercing networks like ABC and CBS to either not report on news, or to lie about the reporting to make the administration not appear so corrupt and incompetent. Yes, we aren’t only being lied to, but are being kept in the dark intentionally. Sometimes I wonder if ethics are still taught in journalism. Ethical journalism as the Fourth Estate, is an imperative to American Democracy.

"The Trump administration came into office promising to end federal censorship and government weaponization. Its Jan. 20, 2025 executive orders framed the prior administration’s pressure on social-media platforms as intolerable interference with the marketplace of ideas. But rather than abandon coercion as a tool of speech policy, the administration has redirected it through the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

The targets are the intermediaries that structure modern speech markets: social-media platforms, advertisers, fact-checkers, broadcasters, and payment networks. Many of these intermediaries are multisided platforms, meaning pressure applied to one side can reshape incentives across the whole ecosystem. Government officials can therefore influence speech indirectly by targeting advertisers, banks, broadcast affiliates, or evaluators of online content rather than speakers themselves. That is the danger of censorship-by-proxy."

- Censorship-by-Proxy: Jawboning in the Marketplace of Ideas
- International Center for Law & Economics
- Ben Sperry
- May 8, 2026

For those of us not blinded by influence campaigns being run by the GOP with Russian assistance for the past couple of decades, we are not deluded by the conspiracy theories, outright lies and omissions that serve as news for Republicans. You and I live in the reality that our family and friends have imposed onto all of us with their vote and right now, that reality is as abusive and un-American as it gets. Republicans are now being abused like the rest of us, and this is why our reality is becoming theirs as well. Nearly as many Republicans depend on social safety net programs as the left. Those GOP voters are finally getting it through their thick heads that they were conned, and that their party doesn’t give a damn about them. Welcome these folks back into our herd if you get the chance. Every vote will count come this November.

Even though that many Republicans are beginning to understand our long-held convictions about them and their party, I will introduce a fact into our reality that plays a role in November. During all my years in CT or Counterterrorism, I have had the opportunity to review a great many de-radicalization or countering violent extremism programs and to be frank, the success rate for rehabilitating fully committed extremists and violent extremists, is absurdly low. Once someone’s identity has been so completely brainwashed that they will act on their extremist beliefs publicly, their recovery chances are slim or none. Those believing in and acting on conspiracy theories and radical ideology publicly, like Project 2025, are by definition extremists attempting to overthrow our constitutional republic. Those involved in the January 6th, armed insurrection, are violent extremists with the same goal and their loyalty to Trump and the GOP brand, are inseparable.

There is no chance that the administration or the GOP will change their ways in a positive manner before the midterms. This is reality. They will also continue to deny us news about what’s going on in America or around the world. The war in Iran and the Persian Gulf attest to this fact. We have little to no idea what is occurring there because between the administration and their co-conspirators who own networks, there is an informal censorship. As one who reads history and has participated in a couple of wars, I find the reporting on the Iran War abysmal. Stories are suppressed, facts are altered, press briefings are for cheerleading the administration, not disseminating credible information. The Trump administration even went so far as to demand that satellite owners not allow any video or images about the war, to be transmitted to the US. Censorship takes on many forms and this government is employing all of them.

Between the brainwashing of GOP voters and the administration’s censorship, acquiring high-quality news in the US during the Trump era, is far more challenging than at any other time in US history other than the Yellow Journalism Era. It’s no wonder that Republican reality is grounded in the fairy tales and conspiracy theories marketed by liars, conmen (and women) and traitors. Here’s the critical point regarding the brainwashing and censorship; roughly 70% of America is not brainwashed. We must encourage empathetic voters to venture from their sofa and cast their ballot for reality, not the cartoonishly ridiculous lies that are the trademark of today’s GOP and the White House.

Like any other problem that we face in our lives, we must make decisions based on the best information at the time. When we are deprived of credible information or information at all, our opportunities to make informed decisions evaporate as fast as water on a Palm Springs pool deck. Reality is truth. Republicans and the White House are the ones depriving voters of the information required to make the hard decisions we must make, in order to repair the massive scale of damage done to our republic, and its citizens. One aspect of reality that a large component of the Republican voting bloc ignores, is how angry and frustrated we are that we must endure our current disastrous upheaval. As much as I hold my GOP voting family and friends dear, I resent the fact that I must now be the one to stop the insanity of listening to their dangerously aberrant ideology out of politeness. I for one, cannot allow myself to protect their feelings from reality.

I have intentionally made this first essay back a somewhat shorter endeavor. I simply wish to make the point that, we cannot wish away reality. We’re in a helluva jam and the only way out is to return to a point where newsrooms aren’t cowardly and that Republican voters, stop ignoring their shrinking balances in their checkbook, the Iran war on for oil, that America’s racists are now running the very nation secured by the blood of a myriad of all faiths, religions, ethnicities, races etc., and that 70% of the nation is angry with their willful ignorance. While raising my children, there were times when I didn’t much care for their behavior but the one thing that was never in doubt, was that I loved them unconditionally. They grew up into remarkable adults, one and all, and I’m beyond grateful for the wonderful warm relationships we have.

Like my children, we can continue to love our family friends too, even when we don’t very much like them. The relationships may be a bit rough for a while, but we can heal as a nation so long as we all have the courage to operate on truth… and after we get our country back under control. In the meantime, we must find a way to reacquaint those we care about with reality. If not, it’s up to us to find those independent voters and help them understand that apathy is the equivalent of defeat. It is fitting that I close this essay with another quote from David Foster Wallace, that speaks to this point far more eloquently than I do.

"In reality, there is no such thing as not voting: you either vote by voting or you vote by staying home and tacitly doubling the value of some Diehard's vote."

- David Foster Wallace, Consider the Lobster and Other Essays

My very best for your weekend and, keep the faith.

Paul

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TAT readers,

Well my friends, the administration has apparently never learned the old rule that says, “when you’re in a hole you can’t get out of, rule #1 is to stop digging. Sure, it’s common sense as well, but common sense is on the endangered species list in this administration. The Iran War is such a hole and the administration just can’t stop digging. Barring any significant change to the status quo, Iran has no compelling reason to change either her position or her strategy regarding the Strait of Hormuz and related issues. Iran holds nearly all of the cards in the on again-off again negotiations with US representatives, a position Iran made clear this week when publicly issuing her demands to be met by the US, prior to restarting peace negotiations. Those demands are in the quote below.

"Trump's remarks came after Mohammad Baqer Zolqadr, the outgoing secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, on Saturday listed six demands that the U.S. would need to meet before Tehran will allow the free-flow of naval navigation in the trade passage.

“Until America corrects its behavior, the Strait of Hormuz will not open,” Zolqadr declared, in a statement carried by state media.

The conditions were as follows:

- Never threaten Iran with any language or insult the sanctities of this nation.

- End the war and aggression against Iran and its allies in Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen, and Iraq forever.

- Lift the naval blockade and withdraw its military forces (naval and air) from around Iran.

- Pay the damages of the two wars of aggression and imposition on Iran without any reduction or reduction.

- Lift the cruel and illegal sanctions against the Iranian nation.

- Unconditionally release the frozen and stolen assets of the Iranian people."

- Trump Responds as Iran Says U.S. Must Meet These Six Demands If Strait of Hormuz Is to Reopen
- Time Magazine
- by Tiago Ventura
- Updated: Aug 10, 2026 2:38 PM ET

Mohammad Baqer Zolqadr’s comments and demands were the diplomatic equivalent of being gestured at rudely with a select, single digit. In the meantime, the whole world is watching as Iranian hardliners turn the screws on our clownish and obviously impotent administration of losers. Trump and the GOP’s backs are against the wall with November midterms right around the corner and they are clueless as how to relieve the financial pressure on voters caused by their latest war for oil. The war, its casualties and costs are deeply unpopular in both domestic US political parties, and around the world. In less than two years, Trump and his GOP entourage have nearly shutdown two of the world’s most critical commercial waterways, and haven’t a clue what to do about it. The world is watching and they are not happy.

Here in the US, inflation costs or what most are now calling “Trump’s affordability crisis,” are costing families at least an extra $3,500 a year with no hope of improvement. Millions have lost healthcare in 2026 while that 70% of America struggles with their household budget, and the Iran War is one of the primary drivers of these added financial burdens. Disruption in the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab al-Mandab Strait (the southern entrance to the Suez Canal) due to the war are deeply impacting shipping, including fuel. Higher fuel costs means higher shipping costs. Higher shipping costs mean higher costs for all products and services. That means the prices at your local supermarket will cost more too, and will continue to do so until there is a sustainable solution to Iran. There is no solution in sight.

For those interested in the relevant data about the depth and breadth of our affordability crisis, please see the link beneath the graphic below from the Urban Institute. When clicking on any of the interactive graphics below, you will be directed to the supporting information for their findings. The research doesn’t tell a pretty story but it is an essential story for each and every voter to understand. Spoiler alert… Both Trump administrations have been very hard on our wallets.

Fifty-five percent of all global manufacturing is in Asia. Everything we purchase in the US manufactured in Asia now costs more. Mexico and Canada are our biggest trading partners and both are targets of what the Wall Street Journal calls, the Trump tariff obsession. Just recently, he burdened both with new tariffs that you and I will pay for. In other words, inflation cannot go down so long as tariffs and the Iran War’s inflationary factors don’t improve. These improvements are nowhere in sight either. GOP politicians can promise to fix inflation all they like but unless the underlying factors like closed waterways and tariffs don’t change, inflation won’t change.

On the global front, China continues to be the big winner in this Iran War fiasco. The longer the war, the more extensive the damage to the image of the US as a superpower of consequence. Our ongoing abdication from global alliances and institutions simply reinforces Xi’s message to the world; “China is the safe, stable partner and the US is the selfish disruptor.” Much of the world already believes this, especially after Americans elected Trump a second time. Part of US national security is based on being us being a force for good in the world that is also a reliable ally and good neighbor. This gives us the security of the herd. Neither of these things are true any longer. If China develops more influence in the world than the US, we lose the security of the global herd.

As has been Xi’s strategy since taking power, mediating conflicts has been a key component of ingratiating himself and China with nations around the world, for the purpose of influencing them to favor China over the US and other western nations. In fact, last May, China launched the International Organization for Mediation (IOMed), a new international organization focused on international dispute mediation. The message the world is hearing at the moment, is that the US is the global disruptor and China is the global unifier.

Mediation and global engagement have been keen and somewhat effective elements of his China Dream strategy, built onto the back of his BRI or Belt and Road Initiative. Note that the China Dream strategy has two milestones, regional hegemony for China by 2035 and global by 2049. Of course Xi isn’t the best partner, but China’s stability is definitely more attractive to other nations when the US is behaving like the proverbial, “bull-in-a-China-Shop.” The worse our behavior, the less influence we have with other nations. Friendless and ignored is a vulnerable position to be in when it comes to geo-politics.

Now we find ourselves in an awkward stalemate with Iran. With the cost of the war pickpocketing American wallets, our diminished position of influence in the world and with not one single exit strategy on the horizon, the situation comes down to Trump desperately trying to find a way out of the disaster he created, while that Iran broadcasts our military and diplomatic impotence to the entire world. The problem for the American people and the rest of the world, is finding a way to end the stalemate before any further damage can be done to our economy and our fleeting national security posture. Based on Iran’s demands this week, they are prepared to wait out these alleged negotiations… until well after the midterms. The question then becomes; “can the US and global economies continue limping along for another 3 months until the midterms, with 20% less energy to drive industry?”

Iran is less vulnerable to prolonging negotiations so long as Xi continues providing support. Both Russia and China have assisted Iran in targeting US troops and facilities in allied nations along the western side of the Persian Gulf, like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, Jordan and Oman. So long as Iran can keep a knife at the throat of one-fifth of the world’s oil supply and hold it hostage, Iran can call the shots and short of a full-scale ground war, there’s not much we can do about it. This is where we are today. Meanwhile at home, the war’s extreme unpopularity and massive cost, is raising alarms within the GOP about their chances in the midterm elections.

And then at the end of July, Iran launched cyberattacks against water facilities in the US in six states. These cyber attacks are a message to the US, if you attack our infrastructure, we’ll attack yours too. This is in reference to Trump’s repeated threats to destroy Iranian infrastructure that supports the civilian population. This would be a war crime. Terrorism threats here in the US are also now elevated due to the war. Slowly, the war is coming home to America, along with the higher prices.

We may as well get used to this on again-off again war, that as I recall… still does not have the approval of congress. American casualties are increasing and the price tag for this war is climbing faster than Trump’s ego when being fawned over by his cadre of wealthy sycophants. Our inability to bring the Iran war to a successful end continues to diminish our stature as a primary superpower. In fact, I could make a good argument that the US is no longer the world’s primary power. Our demonstrable poor strategic judgement, depleted munitions stockpiles and failed campaigns against Iran, have made us appear vulnerable to our adversaries, especially if they were close strategic partners such as China and Russia are.

As we careen downhill towards the midterms, the Iran War will seem to drag on endlessly. We no longer have the diplomatic clout, or sufficient munitions to bring the war to a successful conclusion at this time. We are largely devoid of leverage over Iran due to China’s backing and having the entire world breathing down our back because of the significant disruption to global industry and commerce. Iran seems to be managing Trump’s sanctions and regime change doesn’t appear to be on the horizon. Barring any major unforeseen events or changes, I’d say that Iran can continue to humiliate the Trump administration and us by proxy, for a long while.

I wish this essay could bring you more hopeful news, but we remain saddled with an administration and governing party that don’t give a damn about you, or me, or the American people. The forecast calls for more Iran war pain, at least until the midterms. Should anything significant change, I’ll be back with an update. Until then, settle in for at least another few months of pain. With any luck, this ship of fools called the Trump administration, won’t make things even worse with another of their hair-brained ideas.

My very best to all,

Paul

Parts 1-10 in this series are below:

1. Part I: The coming war with Iran - by Paul Cobaugh

2. Part II: It’s just always about the oil - by Paul Cobaugh

3. Part III: The Iran War: Criminal Malfeasance

4. Part 4: the War with Iran leads to grave consequences on a local and global scale

5. Part V: The Iran quagmire is becoming quicksand

6. Part VI, the Iran War: Never say it cannot get worse.

7. Part 7: The Iran War, Trump surrenders - by Paul Cobaugh

8. The Iran War, Part VIII: The liars, cowards and thieves, looting our household budgets.

9. Part IX, the Iran War: Hold your horses everyone, a yet unsigned MOU is not a peace deal

10. Part X, the Iran War; The "peace deal" that wasn't.

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How Tehran’s Use of Cyber Operations in the U.S.-Iran Conflict Has Evolved

The Iran Conflict | Ipsos

Iran war reverberations: A nadir for Asia’s economic security | Brookings

America’s Affordability Crisis Is About More Than Rising Costs | Urban Institute

Latest Analysis: War with Iran | CSIS

TAT readers,

As always, there are plenty of issues to be outraged over so long as this administration and their party hold power within our government, but today, this is personal. Some of the things happening in and around the Pentagon these days that don’t get big headlines, are revolting. Today, I’ll vent a bit of my deep frustration about one of those less visible transgressions, but mostly around the immigration issues for servicemembers and veterans, along with their families. How is it that a nation of immigrants that is protected by a military that is 98.3 % immigrant or a descendant of immigrants, can abuse immigrants currently serving on active duty and their families?

While mining this morning’s news for a topic today, I came across an “Exclusive” from the AP/ Associated Press titled; 50-plus military spouses, parents detained in immigration crackdown. As a retired soldier, I felt deep shame and disgust while poring over the details in their “exclusive.” ICE rounding up family members of serving US servicemembers for removal, strikes at the very heart of what service to our nation of immigrants means. Abusing the families of these warriors denigrates the very cause those warriors serve, and violates the constitution they have sworn to protect with their lives, if need be. As we have come to expect from this administration, they refused comment when queried by the AP for comment on this story.

Like all other federal agencies in this administration, queries to DHS, ICE, CBP etc., go unanswered. We no longer receive the information from our government that we have traditionally had access to. Even when we do, it is often false when fact checked or a conspiracy theory that is offered as truth. This is no way to run a government that as President Lincoln so eloquently stated in his iconic Gettysburg Address, is "of the people, by the people, and for the people."

"President Donald Trump’s administration has detained dozens of parents and spouses of active-duty U.S. troops as it rolls back immigration protections for military families to pursue its mass deportation agenda, an Associated Press investigation found.

More than 50 parents and spouses of active-duty service members have been detained since Trump took office for a second term, and at least six have been deported and one self-deported, the AP found in the first accounting of such detentions, which the government does not track. At least eight immediate family members of U.S. service members remain in federal immigration custody."

- AP Exclusive: Trump’s immigration crackdown has detained more than 50 military spouses and parents
- Associated Press
- By  JACK BROOK, SAFIYAH RIDDLE and AARON KESSLER
- Updated 11:40 AM EDT, August 5, 2026

To illustrate the evil of this removal effort, allow me to explain that the military already had made commitments to family members of troops that are not citizens but are legal residents, to “parole-in-place.”

"One of the military’s most highly advertised immigration benefits is “military parole-in-place,” which allows the spouses, children and parents of active-duty service members and veterans to obtain legal immigration status from within the country. Not everyone qualifies: Those who overstayed visas or who already applied for legal status at the border, for example.

The policy was implemented under Republican President George W. Bush during the U.S. war with Iraq in 2007 and codified under Democratic President Barack Obama. DHS agencies can grant it on a case-by-case basis."

- AP Exclusive: Trump’s immigration crackdown has detained more than 50 military spouses and parents
- Associated Press
- By  JACK BROOK, SAFIYAH RIDDLE and AARON KESSLER
- Updated 11:40 AM EDT, August 5, 2026

The Pentagon even used Parole-in-Place or PIP as a recruiting tool to boost our flagging recruiting goals.

"In recent years, federal immigration authorities took military service into consideration when deciding whether to enforce deportations or detainment against immigrant troops, veterans and their families. But the attorneys said that deference to service has now either stopped or isn't clearly being taken into consideration.

ICE referred Military.com to the Department of Homeland Security when asked late last month whether it considers military service when enforcing deportation. DHS did not reply by publication.

"They're no longer exercising discretion in favor of military members and their families," Stock said. "It creates an irreconcilable conflict for the military member, and it cuts against the message the military likes to put out that we take care of people, that we don't hurt family members and military members."

"We've stopped taking care of people," she added."

- Marine Recruiters Promoted an Immigration Benefit Until the Corps Told Them to Stop
- Military Times
- Drew F. Lawrence
- July 9th, 2025

In today’s military, whether on base or within the surrounding communities, there is a fair amount of chaos due to the endless administration shakeups in everything from combat operations to base closures and mass job-loss due to federal firings. This increases the stress on everyone from troops to federal employees and defense contractors. Surrounding communities are feeling the stress as well, especially after all of the job losses cut into their customer base. I have family members and friends, often retired military who work in government, who are perpetually stressed by the chaos of this administration. Many family members of troops live on and often work on bases, therefore contributing to the well-being of their families and other servicemembers. Add to this, the stress of worrying about family members being pursued by ICE despite the Parole-in-Place program, and we have servicemembers who struggle to focus on their missions.

If our nation of immigrants desires citizens who are willing to serve their nation on the battlefield, we have an obligation to not abuse their families. The PIP plan was advertised as a benefit to attract new recruits and now, we are not only reneging on our word, we are deporting family members who are part of the support system for our warfighters. Adding salt to the wound, the administration is now also deporting non-citizen, active-duty servicemembers. This is particularly egregious to me as that my first wife served in my unit in the US army with only a green card. Years after leaving the army, she became a naturalized citizen.

This is but one more of the countless examples of how the Republican Party’s support for the military is more myth than substance. They continue to attempt to steal our VA benefits, side with our adversaries, fire our finest generals and admirals, send us on wars of empire for oil companies, fail to protect us at war and waste our hard-earned tax-dollars giving obnoxiously marked up and no-bid contracts to their defense contractor buddies, rather than investing in our troop’s well-being. The final insult is that our so-called Commander-in-Chief, sees us as “losers and suckers.”

The Secretary of Defense shoves his White Christian Nationalist agenda down the throats of our servicemembers, and orders war crimes, but these are not his most destructive traits. Pete’s racist misogynism is undercutting and destroying the very traditions and social innovations that have sustained and transformed the US military into the world’s finest. It was the Pentagon that led on desegregation, waded into gender issues in search of working solutions and pushed hard to educate based on aptitude, not other factors. Then Pete Hegseth came along and began whitewashing our honored history and traditions, by removing the accomplishments of all non-white, non-straight, non-male leaders, icons, heroes etc. This turned my stomach. It’s disingenuous to say that, “all men are created equal,” if only white males count.

My friends, it is beyond painful for veterans who’ve honorably upheld their sacred oath to, “protect and defend the constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic,'“ to witness the administration’s use and abuse of our military. The Pentagon may not always get it right, but overall it has been our reliable insurance policy against tyranny for 250 years. This happened because ideas and adherence to ideals meant something in pre-Trump and MAGA America. America is not her military, land, money, weapons nor any other tangible thing. America is an idea, a dream and a spirit that Pete and his cronies believe they can erase by rewriting our history, abusing our non-white, non-male servicemembers and their families, marginalizing our traditions and shouting us down. He’s wrong and he and his kind, will never understand why. They simply don’t understand that you cannot kill a spirit, especially not a free American spirit.

I’ll begin wrapping this slightly meandering essay by making it clear that I support our troops with as much diligence as I despise this administration and Pete Hegseth for what they are doing to our national security and our troops. As a reminder to those dense Republicans out there, our national security depends on troops believing in what they fight for. Dying so that Chevron, ExxonMobil and the rest could have higher profits next quarter, is not what they signed up to fight for. Pete’s MAGA policies at DoD along with largescale DOGE firings undermined morale, readiness and logistics prior to the administration’s military adventurism around the world.

All of this created additional nightmares after the war with Iran began. The lack of cohesion, failed planning, lack of coordination took its toll. We could begin our war but could not sustain it. We knew this or at least should have known this from the beginning. Our ongoing depleted missile stockpile crisis is clear evidence of failed administration leadership. This crisis alone makes us far weaker should China or any other military crisis arise in the near future. To make matters worse, we don’t even have enough left in our stockpiles to finish the job against Iran, whatever that would look like. Those familiar with military planning are shaking their heads right now and asking themselves, “who in the hell planned Operation Epic Fury?”

Whether it is incompetence on a grand scale, far-right political ideology, massive corruption or any other factor, the jury is in and Pete Hegseth has failed on a global scale. Nations like China now no longer sees us with an invincible military adversary. Our allies doubt us and keep us at arms length, we are incapable of supplying enough munitions to fight a regional war, we are now largely a pariah nation due to tariffs and aggression and we are not taking care of our military. If this isn’t a recipe for disaster, nothing is.

I do appreciate your patience while that I meandered between different topics but all related to the Pentagon and our national security. I hope these thoughts help to fill in some of the blanks between the stories we do see in our headlines.

My very best for your weekend,

Paul

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TAT readers,

Today’s essay is a sobering discussion about the precipitous state of America’s national security posture. It has been willfully degraded since Inauguration Day, but since the Iran War’s first salvos, our inability to protect the nation from a variety of threats, has grown sharply. The willful degradation of our national security should concern every American. National security professionals have been writing about this whittling away of our national security since before inauguration day, 2025. In my opinion, we’ve reached a point of vulnerability nationally, that requires all Americans to acknowledge the threat and act to stop any further damage.

Today’s essay is less a well-organized assessment, than me brainstorming out loud an array of thoughts about our national security that don’t seem to make it to our mainstream news headlines. To be clear, far more goes into national security than just troops, planes, ships, intelligence etc. A true-in-depth and detailed analysis would require volumes to explain the severity of our current vulnerabilities, but today’s cursory look should alarm you enough without overloading you with massive amounts of data from every nook and cranny of our national security budget. Today I am only looking at what I consider to be a few of the most dangerous indicators and issues of our national security readiness.

A nation’s defense depends on a wide variety of factors but they are not all equal. In fact, every nation looks to their own security and much of their decision-making, which is based on their potential adversaries or as is common in much natsec planning these days, “competitors.” Every new administration puts out a document called the NSS or National Security Strategy early in their term. The NSS outlines where the incoming administration sees the most significant threats to our nation and how they intend to go about addressing them. Our most recent NSS is the November 2025 version from the current Trump administration.

I am far from the only national security professional to pan the 2025 NSS. Most serious think tanks find this version to be a strong deviation from everything America has always considered critical to our national security. High profile think tanks tend to carefully couch their criticisms of any administration in euphemisms, so as to not offend whichever political party is in power. Those who have read their reports for years as I have, will immediately recognize a harsher or maybe blunter tone of criticism of this administration. This is an indicator of a highly-stressed national security environment.

Below are a handful of highly respected sources echoing many of my concerns.

• A Strategy That Ignores the Real Threats - The Atlantic

• The New US National Security Strategy: A Transactional Document that Marginalizes Africa - Foreign Policy Research Institute

• Experts react: What Trump’s National Security Strategy means for US foreign policy - Atlantic Council

• Breaking down Trump’s 2025 National Security Strategy | Brookings

• The New US National Security Strategy: A Transactional Document that Marginalizes Africa - Foreign Policy Research Institute

My most prescient threat

"One of the most dramatic geopolitical developments in recent years has been the growing alignment among America’s adversaries and competitors. China is helping Russia reconstitute its military, and in exchange, Russia is providing China with valuable military technology and assistance that could give it an edge over the United States in a conflict. North Korea has sent troops and weapons to Russia in its war against Ukraine, and in exchange, Moscow has helped Pyongyang modernize its military. All of these countries and Iran are cooperating diplomatically against the United States. If a U.S.-China war were to break out, it could easily go global, given these links. Reading the NSS, you’d never know about any of this."

- A Strategy That Ignores the Real Threats
- The Atlantic
- Thomas Wright
- December 8th, 2026

Americans and others are dying, while thousands have become causalities in and around the Iran War. It hasn’t stopped there either. In Trump’s second term, we’ve bombed seven different countries, more than any other president in the modern era. For a guy elected to our highest office by promising to end wars, provide peace deals within 24 hours of being elected and prevent future wars, it’s quite clear that Trump and the GOP who has given him free rein to wage his wars, are abject failures at peace. To make matters even worse, we are less safe, not more after all of these global attacks. I explained this issue in detail in a couple of the essays I wrote for a ten-part series on the early part of the Iran war.

1. Part I: The coming war with Iran - by Paul Cobaugh

2. Part II: It’s just always about the oil - by Paul Cobaugh

3. Part III: The Iran War: Criminal Malfeasance

4. Part 4: the War with Iran leads to grave consequences on a local and global scale

5. Part V: The Iran quagmire is becoming quicksand

6. Part VI, the Iran War: Never say it cannot get worse.

7. Part 7: The Iran War, Trump surrenders - by Paul Cobaugh

8. The Iran War, Part VIII: The liars, cowards and thieves, looting our household budgets.

9. Part IX, the Iran War: Hold your horses everyone, a yet unsigned MOU is not a peace deal

10. Part X, the Iran War; The "peace deal" that wasn't.

All of this military activity takes a toll on troops, equipment, R&D (research and development), morale and sustainability. The US lagging behind in all of these issues and more. For example, for decades, the building and sustaining of our national security has required the ability of the US to fight two, full-scale wars simultaneously. By no stretch of the imagination is that now currently possible. Iran is not even a full-scale war and yet, we’ve critically depleted much of our entire specialty missile and related munitions stockpiles, having borrowed many of the munitions used against Iran from other global commands. Most of those stockpiles cannot be fully replenished until sometime in 2027 at best, and some of the most important ones far later. Should China decide to fight over Taiwan, we’d be in an extremely weak position due to our depleted stockpiles.

It’s not like we entered into this war ready for another war either. The Pentagon has been struggling to maintain readiness for over a decade due to two decades of war in the Middle East, Africa and Afghanistan. We haven’t yet determined a strategy for modernizing and refitting the Pentagon for the rapidly evolving combat environments we see globally. In other words, this is a poor time to start wars around the globe for which we are not prepared. Again I remind readers, our ongoing abuses of our allies, especially NATO, makes our current degraded national security posture, even more pronounced. Such a situation is much like how predators select prey on the savannahs of Africa. They look for the weakened, slow, injured animals without allies on the edge of the herd, as their dinner.

It is not only the munitions stockpiles we’re burning so carelessly, but the Pentagon’s already bloated budget has now faltered under the weight of the absurdly unnecessary war with Iran. Pete Hegseth is now begging Congress for another 70 billion for his losing war. America can ill afford the losses we are suffering, especially regarding the 2.6 billion dollars worth of aircraft lost to Iran. Such losses put a huge dent in our sustainability goals to maintain a force that is fully equipped, trained and operationally competent to protect our nation. As of yesterday, this administration cannot even determine the number of deaths and other casualties. No one in their right mind believes Hegseth’s claim that we’ve only spent 37 billion on the war so far. Honest experts put the number at roughly 90 billion. Despite a 1.5 Trillion dollar budget, Pete is now asking the overwhelming majority of Americans who don’t see any point to this war, to pay another 70 billion.

One aspect of national security that doesn’t get near enough attention is morale. Troops must always know what they are fighting for, believe in the mission, know that they will not be ordered to commit illegal acts etc. Absence of this understanding or not being supportive of current policies can be debilitating for military forces. We saw this often in troops mobilized to go to walk around D.C. or the streets of LA during early administration immigration actions. We’re seeing it again from US casualties in and around the Persian Gulf who were ordered to operate without the necessary layered protections from Iranian missile and drone attacks. There is always some level of morale problems within the force but today’s malaise is universal.

In fact, the US military talks to its troops a great deal about something called “the will to fight.”

"In 2018, RAND published two reports for the U.S. Army describing will to fight. Arguably, will to fight is the single most important factor in war. Will to fight is the disposition and decision to fight, to keep fighting, and to win. The best technology in the world is useless without the force of will to use it and to keep using it even as casualties mount and unexpected calamities arise. Will to fight represents the indelibly human nature of warfare."

- Will to Fight
- RAND
- Ben Connable, Michael J. McNerney, William Marcellino, Aaron B. Frank, Henry Hargrove, Marek N. Posard, S. Rebecca Zimmerman, Natasha Lander, Jasen J. Castillo, James Sladden, et al.
- September 13, 2019

A dangerous hollowing-out of senior officers based on race, gender or policy opinions has taken a toll, especially on the officer corps. Some commands operate like Soviet troops did, with political and religious Kommissars. The recent forced retirement of GEN. Christopher Donahue, commander of all US forces Europe and Africa, stunned all senior leadership. GEN. Donahue was generational leader that I once had the humbling honor to serve under. Seeing him being shown the door was a shock wave of proportion all across the Department of Defense.

When one looks at some of the other facets of national security like allies, friends, a strong economy, manufacturing, a unified citizenry, diplomacy etc., it is easy to see that even outside of the Pentagon, our national security posture is at its weakest since just prior to WW II. Manufacturing still trends towards sending manufacturing overseas, our economy for oligarchs only is spiraling downward before our very eyes, our citizenry is highly divided and not one agency within the federal government is running anywhere close to “smooth.” America is nowhere near prepared to defend itself.

I have even mused here in writing, that in some ways, China has replaced the US as the world’s most dominant superpower. The longer this fiasco in the Persian Gulf drags on, the stronger China becomes and the weaker we look. The stronger Xi becomes, the weaker we become. Not even US military strength can protect us if a China dominated world becomes a reality. For the record, Xi’s 2012 China Dream Strategy which calls for Chinese regional hegemony by 2035 and global hegemony by 2049, is right on schedule. We cannot go it alone in today’s world. No nation can. The smart play is to stop abusing our allies and try to win back a little of the trust we so callously destroyed. Without a competent corps of Ambassadors, which we don’t have, we cannot restore trust with allies via standard diplomatic norms. Not only have we shot ourselves in the foot, but we’ve used a cannon to do it. In the modern world, those without allies formal or otherwise are nothing more than prey. For example, just a few weeks after Trump’s inauguration, he ordered all cyber and influence operations against Russia halted. Now Russia attacks us constantly and we’ve made it far-easier for them.

Our primary threats are not just overseas either. Terrorism from across the ideological spectrum threatens citizens, with far-right violent extremism continuing their twenty-plus years spree that accounts for the majority of the violence. Cost of living challenges for citizens continue to mount, diseases once eradicated have reappeared, our civil rights are disappearing and the overwhelming majority of Americans, deservedly no longer trust their government. In fact, my professional opinion is that miss and disinformation have turned our media environment septic. The government not only refuses to help, but doesn’t know how even if they tried.

Summary

I am appreciative for those who’ve taken the time to read my thoughts on some aspects of our national security vulnerabilities that don’t make the headlines. To be blunt, I no longer am confident that the US is still the primary global power. China has a far-better diplomatic and commercial network that links them to nearly every corner of the world. Their military is growing as rapidly as it is modernizing. Tariffs, diplomatic abuses, refusal to cooperate, are just some of tools that we use to force ourselves and our allies into retreat.

Debacles of the Iran War demonstrate not only failed leadership from the administration, but that we are a bull-in-a-China-shop when it comes to the global economy. Being unpopular around the world is one thing, but being a selfish international agitator when it comes to the global economy only further isolates the US from the safety of our existing military and trade alliances.

Without firm intervention by congress that restores professionalism to our national security community, America will become critically vulnerable on the world stage and with a sharply reduced voice in global affairs. Are we really willing to surrender our future to oppressive oligarchy that leaves us less safe than at any other moment in my lifetime? The only way we can stop the bleeding from the deep wounds in our national security, is to take it to the press and to congress relentlessly. We can sort out our intra-American partisan battlefield later but at the moment, our national security is in the ICU, and the patient is coding.

My very best for your week,

Paul

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TAT readers,

As I mentioned in my last essay, I’m in that part of the summer where opportunities to share time with family and friends are more frequent, and a welcome distraction from my normal routines. In other words, thank you for your patience with my less-frequent essays. One of my favorite parts to this time of the year is that those I spend time with, are spread all across this fine nation and in many cases, the world. Spending time with loved ones in their part of the country, also means an opportunity to “take the pulse” of Americans of all types and interests. By the end of the summer, I will have seen the country from top to bottom and east to west. To date, that pulse has been fairly uniform regardless of whether I’m in a so-called “red state” or “blue.” I will give you the next paragraph as an over-simplified overview of what I’m finding.

America is exhausted, humiliated globally and domestically, buckling under the weight of job uncertainty, inflation, diminishing benefits, healthcare costs and even wonders whether or not the American Dream still exists. In many places I’ve traveled so far, there is a sense that America is on some sort of melancholic “autopilot” and therefore directionless. If true it is the type of apathy that can destroy democratic institutions, even those with 250 years of success. There is also that nagging, budding trend of rejecting politics and political parties altogether. This brings new urgency to the now accepted fact, that the American political system is by all measurable standards, on life-support as a functioning constitutional republic.

Right now, we need a citizenry that is courageously willing to see the faults in our political system clearly enough, to implement the common-sense safeguards required to protect all of our rapidly diminishing, constitutionally guaranteed rights. All across America, I hear from people from all political disciplines that clearly see the faults in our system and the answers to fixing those faults. In many ways, we as a nation overthink some of the simplest concepts. For example and as it pertains to this essay, most Americans dislike the idea of big money in politics, that the news is no longer trustworthy, that politicians regularly lie to them, etc., etc., etc. For the record, these issues and those like them are points of interest for both sides of the so-called aisle. Anywhere our nation can find commonality these days, is a good thing.

The most prominent trends I’m finding in my travels, revolve around the issue of affordability. Wherever I travel, Americans are working more hours, extra jobs and shopping more carefully. The sad part of this trend is revealed when chatting with these folks, as that none of them see better days ahead. This may just be my anecdotal reporting but it’s also part of my profession to watch, hear and understand people, or as many would say, “to read them.” America is beginning to be seriously concerned about being able to afford their lives in the future. Another unifying issue between left and right, is that both sides are beginning to see that the real issue for November’s midterms, is that the elite wealth class, is keeping them in servitude and that politicians are merely the facilitators of those shackles. If those in the resistance can keep the right focused on how the billionaire-classes propping up the administration are the ones negatively impacting their lives, allies could be acquired from the right, rather than further entrenching the MAGA crowd against us.

The great irony of our current, hyper-partisan political landscape is that the things that really matter to both sides should unify us, not separate. Jobs, a place to live, security, equality, healthcare, a fair legal system etc., are things we all want and yet, we allow politicians to pit us against each other for their benefit, not ours. Culture wars are merely diversions from other truths that we can all agree on. So long as we allow them to do this, they will continue making deals in congress that they benefit from, not us, the people they work for. The price of this type of accountability, is the education of citizens in how government works, their duty to participate in accurately and well-informed elections, how to hold elected officials accountable etc. All democracy is a team-sport and requires participation. A government, “Of the people, by the people, for the people”, is only as good as those which we advance from the ranks to lead.

From the overview above, there are a couple of issues that I recommend following closely as we careen downhill towards the midterms. First and foremost, inflation cannot improve so long as the Iran War continues. It is really is that simple. So long as the Strait of Hormuz is closed, fuel prices will remain high or grow even higher. All products must be shipped to market. Higher fuel costs equals higher costs for your household. This isn’t rocket science. Even if the Strait opened tomorrow, most fossil fuel experts believe that it would take another year for things to return to pre-war levels. There will be no real relief and especially not before election day. There are no narratives more dangerous to GOP candidates in November, than this economy that is utterly failing working Americans.

Secondly, The Iran War which was lost from the very first hour, is sucking the life out of our economy. All the administration is doing now is enhancing China’s influence in the region. Continuing to act as if we were going to invade Iran or that we can win the war via the air, just makes us more of a laughing stock. An invasion would be in clinical terms, “nuts.” We continue to deplete valuable stockpiles of weapons required to defend Taiwan or take other decisive military action anywhere else in the world. After the lack of planning and execution against Iran and the Houthis, the US military is beginning to be seen as far less intimidating than believed. That perception makes the US and our remaining allies less safe, not more.

So here’s where things stand from my informal polling around the nation. America despises being at war and being lied to about it. Americans are dog-tired of the constant chaos and weary from trying to keep their heads above water. Most Americans are finally getting it through their heads that the so-called real enemy is the one percent, and the political parties that do their bidding. If I may be so bold, I’d also say that the current form of the GOP as a serious party, has peaked. They may exist for a while yet, but their relevance will steadily decline into eventual oblivion. The DNC will be little different if they do not make significant changes going forward. And this brings me to my final point. The pre-Trump, American era we all knew, is gone forever.

As we continue to hurtle towards the midterms, please remember that what came before will never return. If you do keep this thought foremost in your mind, it should trigger the urge within you to restore an America that is safe from the perils we are currently experiencing at the hands of the administration and the GOP. In order to move our nation forward and along the path our founders sought for us, we must rebuild the constitutional guardrails currently being dissembled by the White House. We must install an enforceable set of ethical guidelines for SCOTUS up to and including impeachment. We must restore a mechanism of oversight by congress that agencies cannot refuse to comply with. Sub-human immigration centers are a good example of why oversight by congress is required constitutionally.

We must make congress accountable to the people again. If we don’t, we certainly can’t say that we live in a republic. To make congress accountable, there must be absolute transparency in campaign finance and lobbying industries. There must be enforceable penalties for violating laws regulating these and related industries. Most of all, we must have well and accurately informed citizens that remain civically invested in their own communities. Democracy is not only a team sport, but a sport dependent upon contributions from everyone, just to survive. To thrive, we must all give a little more than we take, whether it’s with our vote, volunteer work, our voice at city council and county public forums, etc. In some small way, everyone of us is a cog in the machinery of American democracy. If that machinery is failing, by default, “we-the-people” are part of the problem. Ironically, this is the best news I’m gleaning from my travels.

Yes, it is good news that both “sides” recognize that our government is broken. It’s the one thing that nearly all Americans can agree on. From this foundation can bloom a new era of American-styled democracy. We can unify over strengthening our weaknesses as a republic. We can unify over transparency, truth, honor and what it truly means to be an American. We may not agree on all of these issues, but the public debate over them is what America was designed for in the first place, a style of government where everyone that wishes to have a say in that government, can.

As much as my travels have been sobering from a geo-political point of view, I believe that I’ve seen with my own eyes, an America that has nearly hit rock bottom. I’ve seen the beginning of the understanding that we have a lot of work to do as we rebuild our republic. We have an entire national security community hollowed out by ignorance, hate and greed. We have an economy dramatically out-of-balance, that supports only the elite wealth classes in a dignified manner. We have an entire citizenry that now believes that the justice system only works for those who can afford it. All of this must be addressed urgently and solutions must be based on our constitution and on facts, not political ideology. Yes my friends, we have our work cutout for us.

Where I find a great deal of optimism is that most of America sees a broken nation that requires their attention. Most understand that all of us are part of the solution if we would just have the courage to try and to expend the energy. This is what gives me hope. Historically, America has never been afraid of hard work, especially when faced by a national crisis. We can and will do this, has been our unspoken mantra for 250 years. What’s important now, is that when the current house of cards falls, that the right voices will be there to lead us back towards a stronger version of our founding ideals.

There is hope on the horizon America. The signs may be faint, but the insanity we’ve lived with throughout the Trump era, is beginning to recede. Reality seems to have once again gained a foothold, even in the reddest of states and counties. I see an America reforming around the better angels of her nature, ready to lick our wounds and to get right back to work putting our nation of ideals, back onto a just and honorable course. Bravo to those who’ve fought the current threat from the very beginning, and to those who’ve just now climbed aboard the resistance train. You’re not just resisting… you are restoring our nation’s true values.

My very warmest regards to all,

Paul

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TAT readers,

Today’s essay is one I’ve been pondering for months. Anyone that has been paying attention during the Trump-era and especially this second term, know full well that our midterm elections, will not be “free and fair” elections. Some of the GOP’s preparations go back more than a decade, and have greatly accelerated since Inauguration Day. They’ve been radically gerrymandering, changing state election laws to disenfranchise minority or opposition voters, firing election workers from your local voting station, removing whole staffs within federal, state and Local governments who are responsible for safeguarding our elections, etc., etc., etc. In short, today’s Republican congressional sycophants to the Trump administration, are denying us the very thing that makes us Americans… the right to vote in free and fair elections.

The point is, no serious voter should be living under the illusion that November’s election will be free and fair. The only question that remains, is what will any of us do about it. Will we take to the streets, mob local congressional offices with angry voters, engage in all manner of civil disobedience etc.? What I am driving at is that we are 110 days until the Midterms and if we are to oppose the intended theft of our votes, we need to start now figuring out what our actions will be when it occurs. As I have been writing since my autopsy of the Democratic Party’s abject failure in 2024, they are worthless, absent from leadership and we must do this ourselves. So, let’s get serious about mapping out our response to a likely “rigged” election in November.

Background essays on the hapless DNC are below:

• Where o where has the DNC gone... - by Paul Cobaugh

• Democracy is dying and the DNC is AWOL - by Paul Cobaugh

I began writing about today’s topic just four days after Inauguration Day, January 20th, 2025 by writing, “An open letter to everyone’s friends and family that voted for Trump... again.” I followed up through February and March of 2025 with a six-part series on the coup underway by the administration, which included recommendations for who the resistance must target. Now, with only a hundred and ten days to go to the midterms, those recommendations are not only still appropriate but now urgently needed. To save everyone a great deal of reading, I’ll cover a few of those highlighted recommendations again today. There will also be some modifications to those previous recommendations.

Okay my friends and fellow patriots, let’s get serious. The short answer to “what will we do” must include civil disobedience on a scale not seen since my youth during the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War. Between 1960-1970 when I was between 4 and 14 years old, the evening news was dominated by the Vietnam War, massive protests, demonstrations, sit-ins, boycotts and every other form of civil disobedience, up to and including occasional violence that even extended to bombings. The Reverend Martin Luther King’s famous “I have a dream speech” in Washington D.C. drew hundreds of thousands of marchers and he’d already given different versions of this iconic American speech at huge rallies in many other large cities around the country. By the time that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 had passed, the US had begun fighting in Vietnam. Those massive, nationwide protests simply rolled over into anti-war protests.

For the rest of the 1960s and even as far as the early 70s, the war in Vietnam and the protests against it were mainstays on the 6:00 o’clock news with Walter Cronkite. One minute we’d be watching actual combat in Vietnam and a few minutes later, the news about some enormous protest, sit-in, demonstration and even terrorist bombings at US universities. Americans are no stranger to mass protest. In fact, it’s part of who we are as Americans. World War I veterans marched on Washington during the Great Depression to acquire their promised bonuses, only to be ridden down by US cavalry troops led by none other than Douglas MacArthur. MacArthur would go on to become a four-star general during WW II and the Korean War, before being fired by President Truman.

There is a deep chord within American citizens that will not tolerate being talked down to, deprived of our rights and threatened. This is all that we get from the current administration. They refuse to follow the law, even when ordered to by federal judges, which leaves us, “we-the-people” subjected to the same tyranny that sparked our revolution from British rule. We’ve seen multiple of the “No-Kings” rallies in the past which were nice and inspiring, but they went towards no stated goal and worst of all, were not supported by any sustaining narrative. Since the resistance is devoid of a narrative, we must craft one. It could simply be as elementary as, “we demand that the administration and ruling party adhere to the law.” It could also be longer and more detailed but either way, we need one. Fighting the daily outrages are necessary to some extent but the only thing that wins, is an overarching narrative with supporting narratives that express our grievances simply and elegantly. The best delivery method for such narratives is in person supported by thousands of patriots who believe as we do.

When I talk about massive civil displays of our anger, I’m not talking about once a month or more, I’m talking about millions of Americans in the streets every weekend until after election day. Where these protests occur is equally important to the numbers. As I have been saying for over a year, take these massive protests right to the home offices of Republican senators and representatives, and drag the local media with you. Every elected Republican official is vulnerable and collectively, they are the weakest link. This makes them an ideal target for large-scale protests. Their editors may be cowed by threats from the administration, but they cannot ignore thousands of local citizens in the streets.

Look guys, most mainstream US media these days has the spine of a garden slug. If we don’t force them to do their jobs, they won’t. The only way to get their attention is to “get in good trouble,” as recommended by the late congressman and civil rights icon, John Lewis. Here’s the deal and there’s no way around it, every sitting Republican in congress is terrified of the midterms. Our mission is to ensure that they will fear the wrath of the people.

The GOP did this to themselves. At every turn during the Trump era, they’ve had a chance to follow the law and support their constituents. At every opportunity they’ve chosen poorly in order to not rile the madness of their dear leader in the Oval Office. Our government has not been this unhinged from the law and the constitution its based upon, since the outset of the Civil War. Unless we are loud and insistent with our demands of them, they will refuse to put our needs over their fear of Trump. It really is this simple.

Many Americans still refuse to believe that this administration, supported by the entire Republican presence in congress, will attempt to “rig” the midterms. I find their disbelief incredulous since the administration has been breaking the law and violating our constitution from the very first hour of this maximalist-corrupt, second Trump term. Some of the nation’s best analysts have been following the administration’s plans to steal our midterms now for months. Todd Blanche, acting AG, Pete Hegseth at DoD, Markwayne Mullin at DHS, and countless other administration officials have sat in front of congressional hearings and refused to commit to not putting troops and DHS law enforcement at our polling sites. We’ve seen this movie before, especially with the Supreme Court. They say what they need to in order to be confirmed as cabinet members by the US Senate and then… turn around and fail to keep their pledges. There is no honor among thieves.

For those curious as to “how” the midterms will not be “free and fair,” please see the links below.

• Are President Trump and His Allies Laying the Groundwork To Undermine Our Elections? | Campaign Legal Center

• Trump moves to tighten federal control of elections ahead of midterms

• The Campaign to Undermine the Midterms | Brennan Center for Justice

• How the Trump administration is trying to reshape how elections are run PBS News

• Trump accused of trying to ‘rig’ elections after firing federal commissioners | Donald Trump | The Guardian

• 8 Things to Know About Trump’s Effort to “Take Over” Midterm Elections — ProPublica

• Inside Trump’s Effort to “Take Over” the Midterm Elections — ProPublica
  
  

  

Then there’s that voter suppression bill called the Save Act, that both Trump and his congressional cronies are pushing hard. Every single Republican that I have read about or heard speak in a video, has lied outrageously about this voter suppression bill. It’s simply a solution looking for a problem. In other words, we have no issue with non-American voters. There is not one shred of evidence to support the need for this additional costly addition to laws that have been on the books, since 1996.

"Congress is moving the SAVE Act suite of bills, which would disenfranchise millions of eligible Americans from registering to vote. This time, they’ve added provisions that would also make it harder to cast one’s ballot. Here is what you need to know. 

A renewed push for the SAVE Act 
For the last several months, online supporters of the SAVE Act have partnered with President Trump, Representative Chip Roy (R-TX-21), Senator Mike Lee (R-UT), and even Elon Musk to promote the legislation through social media platforms. The focus has been on spreading mis- and disinformation about voting in our country, largely around non-citizen voting. 

Claims that non-citizens participate in federal elections are wildly overdramatized and false. In fact, it is already illegal for non-citizens to register to vote AND cast a ballot in state and federal elections across the country. In 2016, the Brennan Center for Justice found that across 42 jurisdictions with high immigrant populations, there were only 30 cases of suspected noncitizens voting out of 23.5 million votes cast (.0001%). An audit of Georgia voter rolls found that out of 8.2 million registered voters, there were only 9 instances where a noncitizen cast a ballot. Claims that noncitizen voting is a true threat capitalize on racism and fear to promote certain politicians' agendas."

- The SAVE Act is Headed to the Senate: A Push to Restrict Voting Access
- League of Women Voters
- February 23, 2026

Summary

As you can see, there is no “if” the Republicans will attempt to steal our election. There is no DNC, no Congress, no SCOTUS and no other guardrails to protect our most important constitutional rights. We are the cavalry and so we must act like it. The best targets for our outrage are every single GOP elected official, whether local or at the national level. After well over a decade of Trumpism, anyone still supporting the GOP, are complicit in the destruction of our republic. It’s truly that simple. Everyone that cares about American democracy and our children and grandchildren’s future, now has no choice but to be loud and dogged in their pursuit of justice. I realize for those trapped in neighborhoods, small towns and rural regions of the country, have a tough row to hoe due to peer pressure. Urban folks are much the same at the neighborhood level. We must face our fears and take to the streets. I protest best from my keyboard but will take any opportunity to join in the throngs of patriots that do take to the streets.

As for what we are shaming Republican officials for, there are plenty of options but if we narrow the list down a bit, the campaign becomes more cohesive. For example, most honest Americans regardless of political preference, wants; justice for the Epstein victims regardless of who is involved, justice for the January 6th insurrection, an enforceable code of ethics for our deviant SCOTUS, restoration of every dollar stolen from us, the tax payers, to vote out every sitting Republican in congress, an overturned Citizens United, and last but not least, an impeached president and to investigate and prosecute Trump, his family and his oligarchs without exception, for violations of US law in their business dealings. As we all well know… this list could be pages longer if necessary, but I’m certain that you get the point.

In many respects, this essay isn’t just about what to do after the election has been stolen, but what we must do here and now. A little over a hundred days to operate, isn’t very much time, considering how much pressure we must put on the administration, SCOTUS, Congress and even the DNC. Work together to form a plan, get some great walking or running shoes and let’s hit the pavement. It’s the only way to hold onto what millions of Americans have fought to protect. This is our country, not Trump’s, his oligarchs, his spineless GOP and their voters, who put us into this mess in the first place. It’s too late to save the GOP voters but we can save the republic. That’s a pretty darn good trade in my book.

My very best for your weekend,

Paul

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p.s. Over the next week or two, I’ll be spending as much time with loved ones as possible. It’s that time of year for visiting with family and dear friends. I will try and push out an essay or so. I look at this partial break as a time to recharge my batteries for the last few months of this election. I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible in our streets fighting for our liberty.